Rudolf Barshai, Moscow Chamber Orchestra - Lokshin: Songs of Margaret & Symphonies Nos. 7, 10 (2008)

Alexander Lazarevich Lokshin (1920-1987) is one of the most talented and original composers of the 20th century. Having remained aloof from the confrontation between the various musical trends, which had erupted so acutely in the musical life of the former Soviet Union during the 1960s and 1970s – the rivalry between the radically avant-garde and the traditional-national trends, the composer was able to create his individual style, in which a contemporary musical language is combined with a foundation on traditions of the high art of the past. Emotional saturation, melodic abundance, harmonical and timbral expressivity, a compositionally-dramaturgical plasticity and freedom, as well as a structural unity – these are all qualities, due to which the music of Lokshin authoritatively attracts the listener to itself and could be recognized and remembered. Of the great conductors of our time, Rudolf Barshai is surely the one most closely associated with the contemporary composers whose music he conducts. He studied composition with Shostakovich discussed orchestration with Prokofiev, and established himself as a forceful advocate of the music of Alexander Lokshin. In 1955 Barshai has founded the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. It was he who first acquainted Russian audiences with Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Symphony, Weinberg’s Symphony No. 7 in C major for strings and harpsichord, Music for chamber orchestra of Sviridov.