Thursday, November 09, 2006

Herald Review November 1st

This review from ‘The Herald’ on November 1st 2006 comes from the second lunchtime recital at Ramshorn Theatre, Glasgow and featured the second half of the Wigmore programme from September 10th. The concert is part of the ongoing national recital tour, sponsored by the UK Shostakovich Society.


MURRAY MCLACHLAN, Ramshorn, Glasgow
Michael Tumelty
****

Murray McLachlan’s second recital yesterday in his short series entitled Shostakovich and his Comrades, marking the centenary of the Russian composer’s birth, was a very different animal from the first.
The core of the programme was a rare performance of Shostakovich’s Second Piano Sonata, written during the war years but bearing no resemblance, as far as I could judge, to any of the great orchestral works of the period. The rippling passages in its first movement surrounded a pawky little march that apparently paid lip-service to Soviet realism, though, as McLachlan pointed out, then underlined in his penetrating performance, the music might well have been coloured with that sardonic touch so typical of the composer.
It was, however, in its extraordinary slow movement that the sonata made its most striking impression, with expressionistic music that might have come straight out of the Second Viennese School in another country and a radically different culture, though this, too, was undercut by the typically dry staccato music with a hint in its tread of a funeral march. The finale, stunningly played by McLachlan, was a dazzling example of the theme and variations species, where Shostakovich, in a masterpiece of coherence and clarity, never once let the theme slip out of focus.
In prefacing the Shostakovich with Ronald Stevenson’s powerfully eloquent and haunting Recitative and Air, a memorial to the Russian composer built on the notes of his motto theme, DSCH, McLachlan broadened the depth and scope of his survey of little-known Russian treasures, before winding up a superb recital with Shchedrin’s lunatic and madcap Naughty Limericks Concerto, in which the Keystone Cops teamed up with Road Runner a la Russe.

6 Comments:

At 8:05 am, Blogger Murray Mclachlan said...

I'm very honoured! Best though to go through the record company: info@dunelm-records.co.uk or 01457 855313.

Many thanks and best wishes

 
At 8:42 pm, Blogger andrew said...

Hi There,

This may come as a strange request. However, my wife has recently taken up piano again after a gap of 40 years and after a trip to St Petersburg at Easter, we heard about Murray's playing of Shostakovich and those composers who lived in St Petersburg at the same time ( a performance of Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony we heard in April was magnificent) . She adores the piece by Nikolai Myaskovsky on the CD track 2 called "Song and Rhapsody", Op. 58. I was wondering if you could tell me if sheet music for such a piece is available, and where I can purchase it, for I would like to give it to her for a Christmas present.

Thanks in advance.

 
At 12:49 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Murray,

I'm learning to play some of Charles Camilleri's pieces and would like to hear some recordings of them, Charles recommended you...do you have copies of the following pieces, and if so, where can I buy them?

Celestial Harmonies
L'Isola Mistica
Due Canti
Times of Day
Valletta Images

Thanks,
Jo Robinson

 
At 1:32 pm, Blogger Andrew said...

Dear Mr McLachlan

I am currently studying the piano at Huddersfield University (having just completed a year at the
RNCM) and am learning Kabalewsky's piano sonata no 3. Knowing that you have played this piece, I was wondering if you
could help me with a couple of things:

1 - Which edition did you use and did you come across any inconsistencies? I am using the Boosey and Hawkes one which I
am having a few problems with.

2 - I have a recording of Moiseiwitsch playing the sonata - could you recommend any others?

3 - How can I get hold of your recording?

With thanks for your time.

Andrew

 
At 3:03 am, Blogger giles said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 3:08 am, Blogger giles said...

Dear Andrew

I am always grateful to Murray for helping my track down the sheet music to Miaskovsky's 2nd Sonata way back in the day before the internet was endemic! ...

So, now I hope I can provide a similar service! ... the Song and Rhapsody Op58 sheet music is available from the vast International Music Score Library Project, and its file is http://tinyurl.com/2wa6j9

I hope this helps and you get this message

Giles Turnbull

 

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