British label Toccata Classics under the licence from the Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre released a CD with Vytautas Bacevičius' (1905-1970) symphonic music. The new release includes Concerto for piano and symphony orchestra No. 1 (1929), Poème électrique (1932), Symphony No. 2 (1940) and late opuses – Symphony No. 6 (1960) and Graphique (1964). All works performed by the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Vytautas Lukočius and Martynas Staškus.
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Toccata Classics, according to its owner Martin Anderson, "has been created expressly to explore unjustly neglected repertoire. [...] Incredibly, only one of Reicha's 40 or so string quartets is on CD; there are quite literally hundreds of Lassus motets that have still to be recorded, and around 40 of Palestrina's masses -- and there's almost nothing of Palestrina's successor, Giovanni Maria Nanino, on disc. The music of Nordic and Baltic composers is inadequately represented on CD, as is the work of non-operatic Italian composers such as Pizzetti and Ghedini."
The new release in allmusic.com has scored high points as a high standard release. Reviewer Dave Lewis writes: "Once you think the resources of the early twentieth century avant-garde have finally been exhausted, then someone else pulls up the corner of a page of forgotten music and delivers yet another historical salvo. [...] It is quite difficult to describe the music well in a few words; superficially it may sound like Varèse or Mosolov, but it has clarity of orchestral thinking more like Honegger. Yet Bacevičius' musical style is its own brand; while he assimilated some of the models that all of these composers shared, such as Scriabin, he really doesn't sound like them, either. Bacevičius: Orchestral Music will knock the socks off listeners who enjoy meaty contemporary music that is neither tame nor too cold and formally arch — too bad Frank Zappa didn't live to hear this composer."
More reviews:
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/July07/Bacevicius_TOCC0049.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/June07/Bacevicius_TOCC0049.htm
LMIPC inf.
