Igor Markevitch: Complete Orchestral Works, Vol. 4 (2010)

The rediscovery of the forgotten 1920s and 1930s music of Ukrainian-French composer Igor Markevitch was a major event in the last years of the 20th century; here was a genuine missing link: a composer who linked the idioms of Stravinsky and Prokofiev to the far more rigorous concerns of postwar French composers such as Messiaen and Dutilleux. This Naxos disc is a reissue of one of the recordings that made this event possible in its original form as a Marco Polo disc, featuring the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra under ... Read More

The rediscovery of the forgotten 1920s and 1930s music of Ukrainian-French composer Igor Markevitch was a major event in the last years of the 20th century; here was a genuine missing link: a composer who linked the idioms of Stravinsky and Prokofiev to the far more rigorous concerns of postwar French composers such as Messiaen and Dutilleux. This Naxos disc is a reissue of one of the recordings that made this event possible in its original form as a Marco Polo disc, featuring the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra under Christopher Lyndon-Gee; everything about it is the same as the Marco Polo release except for the front cover and that now what was Volume 3 in Marco Polo's series is now Volume 4. Rébus, orchestrally premiered in 1931, was intended as a ballet and certainly sounds like it could be one, but was never staged that way; it's effect is kind of like a crazy Agon with off-the-hook Prokofiev added in; the "Variations" are a continuous passacaglia in which the note values evolve by steps through... Read Less