Igor Markevitch
Igor Markevitch was a leading conductor, known for brilliant performances, especially of twentieth century music. He was also a composer who attracted some interest in his own day. His parents left Kiev when he was two years old. Markevitch was brought up in Vevey, Switzerland. He took piano lessons from his father and then with Paul Loyonnet and also started to compose. The pianist Alfred Cortot saw some of his piano compositions and recommended that the boy study in Paris. In 1925 he enrolled in Cortot's piano class at the École Normale de Musique. He studied harmony, counterpoint, and composition with Nadia Boulanger. The ballet impresario Serge Diaghilev commissioned him to write a piano concerto and a ballet. The concerto premiered in London in 1929, but Diaghilev's death in August of that year caused Markevitch to stop work on the ballet, instead recycling materials from it into a cantata, premiered with great success in Paris on June 4, 1930. Later that year, another new work, a Concerto Grosso, received even greater acclaim. The ballet, Rébus, was first staged in December 1931, and was hailed as a great composition. The next ballet, L'envol d'Icare (June 1933), was once again highly praised. But after this Markevitch began to receive criticism for his use of unrelieved dissonance and his novel use of instruments.
Meanwhile, Markevitch had begun to conduct, debuting on the podium with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1930. He studied conducting with Hermann Scherchen in 1935. His composing activities dropped off as he increased his conducting. He spent World War II in Italy, having acquired Italian citizenship. In 1944 he was appointed music director of the Maggio Musicale Orchestra in Florence. He began conducting full time, coming into demand as a guest conductor, and held a variety of directorships or principal conducting appointments with the Stockholm Symphony Orchestra (1952-1955), the Montreal Symphony Orchestra (1956-1960), the Havana Philharmonic Orchestra (1957-1958), the Concerts Lamoureux of Paris (1957-1961), the Spanish Radio and Television Orchestra (1965-1969), the Monte Carlo Orchestra (1967), and the orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome (1967-1972). His American debut was with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1955. He also began giving conducting master classes, especially in Monte Carlo, from 1969.
He was known for his performance of the Russian repertory and twentieth century music. He had a quick temper, reflected in his music in sharp emotional shifts, yet the music was meticulously prepared and nearly always followed the composer's directions with exceptional care. In the late '90s, his recordings came back into demand in re-release, and even his compositions were finding a small but interested market and were praised anew for their originality.
© TiVo
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Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos.20 & 24
Clara Haskil, Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Sep 1984
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique / Brahms Sinfonies 1 and 4: Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 3 Mar 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Galina Vishnevskaya: Songs and Arias
Galina Vishnevskaya, Mstislav Rostropovich, Academic Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Philharmonic Society, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Russian Compact Disc on 3 Feb 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Milhaud: Les Choéphores; Honegger: Symophony No. 5; Roussel: Bacchus et Ariane (Igor Markevitch – The Deutsche Grammophon Legacy: Volume 15)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 1 Jan 1997
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Brahms: Symphony No. 1 (Igor Markevitch – The Deutsche Grammophon Legacy: Volume 7)
Symphony of the Air, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 1 Jan 1958
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos.1-3
London Symphony Orchestra, New Philharmonia Orchestra, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Symphonie No. 6 "Pastorale" (Mono Version)
Igor Markevitch, Orchestre Lamoureux
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1959
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Igor Markevitch, Vol. 1: Scheherazade and Symphonies by Beethoven, Haydn & Nielsen
Igor Markevitch, Orchestre Lamoureux, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Danish Orchestra, Erich Gruenberg
Classical - Released by DOREMI on 7 Jun 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 1 'Winter Reveries'; Symphony No. 2 'Little Russian'
London Symphony Orchestra, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 1 Jan 1966
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Borodin: Danses polovtsiennes - Mussorgsky: Une nuit sur le mont Chauve - Tchaikovsky: Roméo et Juliette, ouverture-fantaisie (Mono Version)
Orchestre National de France, Igor Markevitch
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1957
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Ouverture de Tannhäuser & Préludes de Lohengrin (Mono Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1960
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Chopin: Concerto pour piano No. 2 - Falla: Noches en los Jardines de España (Mono Version)
Clara Haskil, Igor Markevitch, Orchestre Lamoureux
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky & Stravinsky: Works
Classical - Released by Urania Records on 7 Feb 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz: Requiem Op.5 "Messe Des Morts"; Harold En Italie, Op.16
Peter Schreier, Symphonieorchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Berliner Philharmoniker, Charles Munch, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Saint-Saëns: Danse macabre, Op. 40 & Le cygne, extrait du Carnaval des animaux (Mono Version)
Igor Markevitch, Philharmonia Orchestra
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: La force du destin, Ouverture (Mono Version)
Igor Markevitch, Philharmonia Orchestra
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1952
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Berwald: Symphony No. 3 'Singulière'; Symphony No. 4; Schubert: Symphony No. 4 'Tragic' (Igor Markevitch – The Deutsche Grammophon Legacy: Volume 17)
Berliner Philharmoniker, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Universal Music Australia Pty. Ltd. on 1 Jan 1956
The Qobuz Essential Discography16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Clara Haskil Plays Mozart & Scarlatti
Clara Haskil, Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch
Concertos - Released by Jube Classic on 3 Jun 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Works of Lili Boulanger: Du Fond De L'abime - Psaume 24 & 129 - Vieille Prière Bouddhique - Pie Jesu (Transferred from the Original Everest Records Master Tapes)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Elisabeth Brasseur Choir, Igor Markevitch
Classical - Released by Everest on 1 Jan 1960
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.3 - "Polish"
London Symphony Orchestra, Igor Markevitch, Witold Rowicki
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 1 Jan 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bizet: Carmen, suites Nos. 1 & 2 (Stereo Version)
Orchestre Lamoureux, Igor Markevitch
Miscellaneous - Released by BNF Collection on 1 Jan 1961
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo