Boris Blacher

Boris Blacher was one of the central figures in Berlin musical life after the 2nd World War * Important as a composer of vivid stage and orchestral works and as a teacher * Music noted for its colourful French-inspired instrumentation and its irreverence towards Austro-German tradition * Experimented with 'variable metrics' in works like Piano Concerto No.2, where serial procedures are applied to metrical units * Many stageworks based on classic texts including ballets Hamlet, Lysistrata, Der Mohr von Venedig and Tristan *Paganini Variations is a repertoire piece in German orchestral world and has been recently recorded by Solti* Blacher's pupils included Klebe, Einem, Erbse, Burt, Reimann, Yun and Klaus Huber 



YouTube>fyrexia channel> Boris Blacher>

Tigran Mansurian

Tigran Mansurian was born in Beirut in 1939. In 1947 his family moved to Armenia, finally settling in the capital Yerevan in 1956. Mansurian studied at the Yerevan Music Academy and completed his PhD at the Komitas State Conservatory where he later taught contemporary music analysis. 


In a short time he became one of Armenia's leading composers, establishing strong creative relationships with international performers and composers such as Valentin Silvestrov, Arvo Pärt, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, André Volkonsky and Edison Denisov as well as Kim Kashkashian, Jan Garbarek, and the Hilliard Ensemble. Mansurian was the director of the Komitas Conservatory in the 1990s. He has recently retired as an administrator and teacher, and concentrates exclusively on composition. Mansurian's musical style is characterized mainly by the organic synthesis of ancient Armenian musical traditions and contemporary European composition methods. 


His oeuvre comprises orchestral works, seven concerti for strings and orchestra, sonatas for cello and piano, three string quartets, madrigals, chamber music and works for solo instruments.

YouTube>fyrexia Channel>Tigran Mansurian>

Alexander Vasilyevich Mosolov

Mosolov's earliest music implies that Mosolov was influenced by German romanticism, but this influence waned as he began studying under Myaskovsky and Glière. In an early piece, "Four Songs," Op. 1, Mosolov explored the use of ostinato. 

Widespread use of ostinato became the defining signature of Mosolov's music: Iron Foundry is built of many ostinati working in tandem to create the sound of a factory, it is used in the Second and Fifth Piano Sonatas, etc.

Dissonance "in the extreme" and chromaticism are also Mosolov's signatures, though he stops short of the structured twelve-tone technique of Schoenberg. Instead of tone rows, Mosolov uses thickly-clustered, heavily chromatic chords to make his point. Folk music also saw use by Mosolov. As the first composer of a symphonic suite on a Turkmen folk song, Mosolov adopted the use of folk music before it was mandated under Socialist realism. His Second Piano Sonata incorporated Kyrgyz melodies, and his "Three Children's Scenes" utilized a city street song. However, instead of carefully setting the music for orchestra, Mosolov handled the music "like thematic grist for his compositional mill." This use of folk tunes continued after his Stalinist "rehabilitation." However, Mosolov's early works were marked by dense textures and polytonality that was lost after his expulsion and persecution.

YouTube>Fyrexia Channel>Mosolov Deux Nocturnes>
YouTube>OneQuietLife Channel> Mosolov: Machine Music "Zavod">

Englund - Cello Concerto (I-II)

Kalsons - Cello Concerto (1970) (I-II)

Jan Maklakiewicz

Jan Maklakiewicz was born on November 24, 1899 at Chojnata in the Mazowsze region of Poland; he died on February 7, 1954 in Warsaw. Maklakiewicz was a composer, conductor, teacher, critic and publicist. After initial studies with his father, a country organist, he went to Warsaw to study, first at the Chopin Music School with Biernacki (harmony), Szopski (counterpoint) and Binental (violin) and later at the Conservatory of Music (1922-25) with Statkowski (composition). In the years 1926-27 he completed his composer's studies at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris under Paul Dukas. After his return to Poland he became engaged in composition and was also active as an organizer of musical events, having founded a number of choral ensembles. He was also engaged in teaching, as well as in musical journalism. In the years 1927-29 at the conservatory in Łódz he was in charge of the school choir and lectured on theory of music. From 1929 until his death he was a teacher at the Conservatory in Warsaw. In 1932 he was appointed organist of the Holly Cross, Warsaw, where he also worked as a choirmaster and music critic. After the Second World War, as a musical publicist he contributed reviews and articles to some newspapers and magazines, such as "Daily Morning," "Music," "Choir" and "Polish Daily." In the years 1945-47 he was director of the State Philharmonic in Cracow and then, from 1947-48, he occupied the same position in Warsaw, also lecturing on composition and instrumentation at the State Higher School of Music. He wrote a great deal of church music in the 1930s and a number of mass songs after the war. Many of his works are based on folk themes. Maklakiewicz received the State Music Award in 1932 for his Cello Concerto, the First Prize at the Kronenberg Competition in 1933 for his violin Concerto No. 1 and - posthumously - the Officer's Cross of the Order of Poland's Revival (Polonia Restituta).

YouTube>Fyrexia Channel>Jan Maklakiewicz

Leo Smit

Leo Smit was a Dutch composer of Portuguese-Jewish descent. He was born in 1900 and studied piano at the Amsterdam Conservatory, followed by composition studies with Bernard Zweers and Sem Dresden. Some years later the Concertgebouw Orchestra performed his work Silhouetten. Critics noted ‘the use of peculiar African jazz band sound combinations’. In 1927, Smit moved to Paris, at that time the bustling musical centre of the world. Here, he allowed compositions by colleagues like Ravel and Stravinsky to affect his own music - with audible results. Halfway through the nineteen thirties he discovered his own unique style: a harmonic combination of lyricism, impulsiveness, spirituality and intellect. Leo Smit returned to Amsterdam in 1937 and during the war continued his work as a composer. On 12th February 1943 he completed an exquisite sonata for the flute and piano. On 27th April 1943, Leo Smit was transported to Sobibor, where he was killed three days later.

YouTube> Fyrexia Channel> Leo Smit>