Karayev: Symphony No. 1 & Violin Concerto

Album review

Kara Karayev (1918-1982) was surely one of the foremost figures in the musical life of Azerbaijan in the 20th century: and at any rate he was the first composer from the country to become not only one of the most famous musicians in the Soviet sphere, but indeed in the entire world. In 1938 he joined the Moscow Conservatoire, and returned shortly thereafter to Baku for a job with the Azerbaijani Philharmonic Society; and then in 1944 he returned to his studies in Moscow, this time studying under Shostakovich, who would become a close friend, an unstinting supporter of his music, and sometimes also an influence on his works, albeit less systematically than one might imagine. Karayev's phenomenal career as a composer, conductor, ethnomusicologist, teacher, musical historical, cultural ambassador and administrator, unfolded in Baku from 1946; in 1949 he became the director of the Azerbaijan State Conservatoire, which would allow an impressive number of young musicians to set out on professional careers.

His First Symphony, written in 1943, was the first work of its kind to originate from the Southern Caucasus; written in two movements, it calls for a jumbo-sized orchestra, but the composer deploys his forces judiciously, so that the work alternates between powerful orchestral moments and extremely delicate moments that approach chamber music in their dimensions. In 1961, Karayev went as part of a Soviet musical delegation to the USA; there he met Stravinsky, who acted as a kind of catalyst for what followed. From then on, Karayev threw himself into serialism. He was one of the first Soviet musicians to do so, because at the time the genre was considered by the regime to be a dangerous anti-socialist ideology. The Concerto, whose serialism doesn't really jump off the page, so marked is it by the poles of tonality, was performed by no-one other than Leonid Kogan at the Moscow Conservatoire to mark the composer's fiftieth birthday. Here the works are played by Moldovan violinist Janna Gandelman. © SM/Qobuz