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Christopher Lyndon-Gee Igor Christopher Lyndon-Gee was recently honoured as one of only three hundred conductors included in Naxos’s 600- page book and CD compilation A to Z of Conductors, covering the entire history of the art-form from Hans von Bülow and Arthur Nikisch to the present day. Christopher Lyndon-Gee was nominated for Grammys in 1998 for MARKEVITCH ‘Best Orchestral Performance’ for the first volume of his groundbreaking series of the complete works of Igor Markevitch (originally released on Marco Polo); in 2003 for the world première recording of ’s Symphony No. 5 on Naxos American Classics; and again in 2007 for ’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1 Complete Orchestral Works • 4 and 3, with Peter Sheppard Skærved and the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra (now the Deutsche Radio- Philharmonie). Other recordings have been listed among The Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’ in London, Fanfare magazine ‘Outstanding CDs of the Year’, Penguin Guide to Compact Discs’ multiple Rosettes and Key Recordings Rébus • Hymnes • Hymne à la Mort listings, and he won the Pizzicato prize in Luxembourg. He was named ‘Artist of the Year’ by the Australian National Critics Circle in 1994, and won the Sydney Opera Critics ‘Best Conductor’ award the same year. Acclaimed recent releases include George Rochberg’s Symphony No. 1 in its première recording (Naxos 8.559214); Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra • Lyndon-Gee volume 2 of the complete works of Edgard Varèse (8.557882), including the massive original version of Amériques, for an orchestra of 155 players; and the completion of the Markevitch complete works project, the oratorio Le Paradis perdu, released in 2008. Frequently invited to conduct at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, he conducted four world premières on a single concert at the Jubilee, Fiftieth anniversary Festival in 2007 – new symphonies by the Slovakian Roman Berger; Lithuania’s leading female composer Onute Narbutaite; and the Polish Jerzy Kornowicz and Aleksand’r Lason. In 2006 he led the closing concert at the November 2006 ‘Pawel Szymanski Festival’, also in Warsaw, featuring six of the major works of Poland’s leading composer of today. In 2008, a four-DVD set including this complete concert was released worldwide by Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne. As a composer, Lyndon-Gee was honoured by the Onassis Foundation Prize in 2001, has won the ‘Sounds Australian’ award three times, the Adolf Spivakovsky Prize, and the MacDowell Fellowship twice. In 2006, his setting from Dante’s Paradiso, ‘Frammento del Dante’, was premièred in Florence by the Echo- Klassiek prize-winning German ensemble SingerPur; Musik für SaitenInstrumente has had recent performances in several countries (including Vladivostock, in far eastern Russia); and ‘Over Litton’, after a poem of Edward Storey, was premièred in Wales as a 25th anniversary Presteigne Festival Commission before being taken up widely in New York, Australia and elsewhere. In progress are forthcoming commissions of a set of songs for Lute and Tenor voice, Lieder des Morgensterns; a new work for SingerPur on a text from Milton; a String Quartet; a second string orchestra work for the German conductor Eckart Schloifer, ‘… und unter den Blättern saß Er, weinend’; a work for ‘Harpsichord Unlimited’ in New York, Etudes canoniques; and a Symphony respectfully dedicated to the aboriginal heritage of Australia, Symphony of Dreamtime. Lyndon-Gee studied under Rudolf Schwarz in London, and in Rome, where heard him conduct a student concert, subsequently inviting him to study at Tanglewood. Here he later worked also under Maurice Abravanel, Erich Leinsdorf and others. He worked as Bruno Maderna’s assistant at La Scala, Milan, later becoming second conductor at the Teatro Regio in Turin, working also with the RAI orchestra in that city. He was co-founder with composer Lorenzo Ferrero of the Ensemble Fase Seconda, who premièred dozens of commissioned new works throughout Italy, Germany, France and at many international festivals. As composer, he studied with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome, , Sylvano Bussotti and . Britain’s great musicologist Arthur Hutchings remains a powerful guiding influence, several decades on.

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Igor Markevitch (1912-1983) in , primarily remembered as the fourth husband of the est-ce chez Goethe que, très ému par la mort de Mme Complete Orchestral Works • 4 actress Mae Murray (who appeared in Erich von Stroheim’s Boulanger, survenue le 19 mars 1935, je pris les paroles pour The Merry Widow in 1925), whom he married in 1926, un lied à sa mémoire, que j’envoyai le jour même à Nadia.” – This third volume of the complete orchestral works of himself “dead between two lives”. But this alone cannot separating soon after the birth of their only child in 1927 and “That which I subsequently elaborated [in Le Paradis perdu] Igor Markevitch includes the first recordings of fully explain the reasons for his abandoning divorcing in 1934. Something of a family of career spouses, his only maintained very hidden connections with Milton of whom, Cantique d’Amour and Concerto Grosso; L’Envol composition; and his autobiography Être et avoir été, younger brother Serge married Pola Negri; and third brother in the end, only the title, the opening invocation (”Hail, blessed d’Icare was previously recorded by the composer in published in 1980, obfuscates and misleads even as it Alexis wed, in quick succession, Louise Astor van Alen and light, who may know thy source?“) and the character of Satan, 1938 on poorly-preserved 78 rpm shellac discs. Other makes a show of revealing the writer’s inner life. Barbara Hutton. whose grandeur, often perceived as the creator who preceded than that single recording and a handful of radio Markevitch is dissimilar to the “conductor- 10 Igor Markevitch, Etre et avoir été, Paris 1980, p. 309 : “Ce God himself, dominates in such a magnificent manner the broadcasts, the present series is the first ever made of composer” model exemplified by Furtwängler, que j’élaborerais ensuite [dans ‘Le Paradis perdu’] ne derisory Mephistopheles of Goethe. This opinion does not the arrestingly original orchestral music of a composer Klemperer, Weingartner and many others between the garderait que des liens très secrets avec Milton dont, pour finir, diminish in the least my liking for Goethe. On the contrary, it hailed in the 1930s as one of the most challenging wars. On the contrary, he emerged first as a il ne resta que le titre, la première invocation (”Salut, lumière was from Goethe that I took the words for a Lied to the memory voices of his time, yet subsequently ignored – not least phenomenally gifted adolescent composer exalted by sacrée, qui dira ta source?“) et le caractère de Satan dont of Mme Boulanger, whose death on the 19th of March 1935 so by himself. Thus these discs may offer the beginnings of his contemporaries on the basis of an astoundingly j’admirais l’immensité de créateur précédant souvent Dieu, et moved me; I sent this song the very same day to Nadia.” an opportunity to decipher the mystery that is Igor assured series of early scores, turning to conducting qui domine, ô combien, le dérisoire Méphistophélès de Goethe. 11 English translation by Christopher Lyndon-Gee. Markevitch. almost reluctantly when required by his own work and Cette opinion ne diminue en rien mon goût pour Goethe. Ainsi The singular precedent of Rossini, who retired from by the hardships of post-war life. Yet, after changing the composition of opera at the age of 38 to become a course to this new career exclusively as conductor at restaurateur, but continued to write salon music and thirty, he all but denied the existence of his own music sacred works, seems hardly comparable. Markevitch’s until nearly seventy years old. When questioned in 1958 renunciation at 29 of his identity as a composer is a about his early life as composer, he diffidently replied: unique case in the history of music. To quote David “I would say to you, very frankly, that I am objective Drew, “It is a silence like no other in the music of this enough to claim that there is music which needs to be century or before”. heard before mine, and for which the need is more At first glance the eclipse during his lifetime of urgent. Apart from that, if my works are good enough, Markevitch’s reputation as a composer appears due, they can wait; and if they cannot wait, it is pointless to Het Gelders Orkest (Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra) more than any other single factor, to the dimensions of play them.” his success as a conductor. What has yet to be fully The facts of his “first life” are remarkable enough. Based in Arnhem, the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra gives some hundred symphony concerts each season in the explained, however, is why his life divides so Born in Ki’ev on 27th July, 1912, he moved with his province of Gelderland, in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, and abroad, including tours to Spain, Austria, dramatically and uncompromisingly into two halves – family to Paris in 1914, before settling in . Germany and Hungary. In 2007 the orchestra toured Japan for the first time and returns there in 2009. From the clearly a conscious decision on his part, and one whose As early as the age of thirteen, he played his piano suite 2003-2004 season Martin Sieghart took over as Chief Conductor and artistic adviser of the orchestra. Ken-ichro true reasons this intensely private man seems to have Noces to , who recommended the work to Kobayashi was appointed Permanent Conductor from the 2006-2007 season, and Nikolai Alexeev Permanent Guest sought to keep hidden. Markevitch’s last original his publishers and invited the boy to study with him. In Conductor in 2002. Former Chief Conductors include Lawrence Renes, Roberto Benzi and Yoav Talmi. Other composition was written in 1941 at the age of 29, and he January 1929, before his seventeenth birthday, he conductors who have regularly made guest appearances with the orchestra in the past years include Bernard Klee, never again returned to the creative endeavours that had enraptured Dyagilev with his in F, leading in Hans Vonk, Jaap van Zweden and Roy Goodman. Soloists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Leif Ove Andsnes, Zoltan brought him such renown and adulation when barely in a matter of months to the young composer completing Koscis, Nicolai Znaider and Akiko Suwanai are also among those who have performed with the orchestra. his twenties. The trauma of the Second World War and playing his new Piano Concerto at Covent Garden Recordings by the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra include the symphonies of Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and marks a sharp dividing line during which the composer (in concert form between L’Après-midi d’un faune and Berlioz, with an enthusiastic reception by the press in both Japan and The Netherlands for recordings of Mahler’s appears to have undergone a mental, as well as physical Renard, at what the influential social columns of Sixth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde. crisis, for in 1942 Markevitch suffered a serious illness London’s Sketch referred to as a “rehearsal party” for a while living in Tuscany, and in a letter of the same year select group of intelligentsia including, apparently, written during his recuperation declared that he sensed Virginia Woolf). Soon after, he started work on a major

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lines of the faux-Miltonic pretensions of the libretto for Reproduction of brief quotations permitted with ballet score, L’Habit du Roi (The Emperor’s New rhythms of adolescence that he felt a stranger had been his oratorio Le Paradis perdu (8.570773). Indeed, in Etre acknowledgement. For permission to use longer citations, Clothes), to be choreographed by Lifar with décor by born within, an alien persona that guided him beyond et avoir été, the composer refers to Milton and Goethe in please contact Naxos Rights International Ltd. Picasso. In short, he was at seventeen launched by any of his desires. the same breath; 10 so that it is not unreasonable to 1 “Argument: Ce ballet est la présentation théâtrale d’un Dyagilev on a path that brought worldwide fame as a It is undoubtedly more than coincidental that at conclude that he mimicked their work in a similar Rébus: La phrase a déviner est le proverbe français: “Pauvreté composer by the time he was twenty. nineteen Markevitch should have turned to the Icarus manner, his assertions of source notwithstanding. n’est pas vice”.” (Preface to the 1933 printing of the score of “I was his last discovery” were Markevitch’s words myth for his first truly individual work, L’Envol d’Icare, Rébus by B. Schott’s Söhne, Mainz, edition N°33.111.) in a revealing 1972 interview with the New York dance a score which he continued to re-work in various forms Déployez vous d’un vol adorable ! 2 Re-interpreted, perhaps, by the Ricardian economist Thomas critic John Gruen; and indeed, the manner in which for more than a decade. Icarus, who flew too close to the Célestes messagers, Hodgkinson in the early nineteenth century as “The distress our Dyagilev, “the greatest agent-provocateur that ever sun and fell to earth embodies a vivid image of the fate et vous saintes cohortes! people suffer, and the poverty we all complain of is not caused existed”, took him up must at least in part have been a of the young composer, swept along by the frenetic Apportez le repos à cette âme nouvelle ! by nature, but by some social institutions.” journey into nostalgia for the impresario. Markevitch Paris of the 1930s. Indeed, the most striking passage of Recevez-la donc, et donnez-lui la joie, 3 Tempo N°133-134, September 1980, p. 16 could hardly have entered more fully into the world of Icare is the lengthy, hypnotic, ecstatic-obsessive dans le balancement de votre lent cortège. 4 Henri Prunières, in The New York Times, January 10, 1932: the Ballets-Russes, as he went on to marry Nijinsky’s “Death” that concludes the work, occupying nearly one- “Today, when, according to the phrase of , «we no daughter Kyra, though this marriage soon degenerated. third of its duration. Recevez cette âme nouvelle longer find our new talent in the list of the deceased but in the So much so that during their wartime life in Italy, The series of large-scale works that followed over et donnez-lui la Joie ! list of the births», we have had many disappointments … So I Bernard Berenson rather amusingly related that Igor and the following brief eight years is a succession of Amen. am in no particular hurry to proclaim the genius of even the Kyra used to visit him alternately, since “when they masterpieces in constantly changing languages. Rébus most gifted musicians. But in the case of Markevitch, after the were together their artistic temperaments tended to and Le Nouvel Âge both embody a Prokofiev-like Descend from that mystic flight new work he has just given us, doubt is no longer permissible … explode”. They were estranged four years into this nine- grittiness married to that motoric “moto perpetuo” Celestial messengers, His music is not young. He is a little like Menuhin, who, when year marriage, and Markevitch soon married again, quality that so typifies the music of Albert Roussel, but thou sacred hosts! he was 10, played like a master and not like a child prodigy. His though not before he and Kyra had had a son, Vaslav in a more pointed harmonic framework, and continuing Bring rest to this new-departed soul. accomplishments are amazing … When anyone congratulates (nicknamed “Funtyki”, or “small pound weight” by the exploration of multiple simultaneous Receive it and grant it joy, the admirable on having made such a Berenson), named in honour of his grandfather. that are Markevitch’s trademark. The all-too-brief joined in the swaying of your slow procession. splendid pupil, she laughs and says that he knew the secrets of The music of this extraordinary young man betrays Cantique d’Amour is a ravishing Skryabinesque essay in before he was born. I should add that on every no hint of immaturity: both in style and technique it is evocative color, yet curiously emotionally detached. Receive this new-departed soul, occasion Markevitch pays homage to his teacher.” complete, utterly assured and deeply original. His Psaume and the cantata-symphony Lorenzo Il Magnifico and grant it Joy ! 5 Cp. orchestral score of Rébus (edition cit.), p. 55, with Le Sacre Cantate of 1930, written on a text of Cocteau (and are massive and bold. The early works Sinfonietta, Amen. 11 du Printemps, Boosey & Hawkes edition N°19441, pp. 74 - 75. including music rescued from the sketches for L’Habit Concerto Grosso and Partita are memorable for far more 6 Naxos 8.570773. du Roi), brought forth the comment from Henri Sauget, than merely their youthful assurance of execution; their Definitively incorporated by Markevitch into the set 7 Sylvia Kahan, Music’s Modern Muse, A life of Winnaretta “…it bears witness to a very fine mastery, and to a harmonic language probes beyond the conventional in a only in 1980 (the same year he wrote his autobiography, Singer, Princesse de Polignac, Rochester NY, University of marvellous balance of intelligence and esprit”. This very personal manner, especially in their searchingly Etre et avoir été), this text for Hymne à la Mort also Rochester Press, 2003, p. 291 eighteen-year old, indeed, was hailed throughout Europe original polytonal and polyrhythmic treatments. implies a more than passing implication of salvation 8 Raïssa Mychetsky, mother of Nadia and Lili, born St. as perhaps the brightest hope in the musical firmament L’Envol d’Icare remains the singular work among from that flight that took him too close to the sun in the Petersburg 19 December, 1858, here referred to by her married of that time. Only three years later these masterpieces, whether for its ascetic, pointillistic 1930’s – and not for nothing does Goethe, too, recount title as “Mrs. E[rnest] Boulanger, following her marriage on 14 wrote of the première of L’Envol d’Icare: “this work scoring; its visionary use of quarter-tone tuning, the story of Icarus in the Third Act of Part II of Faust! September, 1877 and transferral to Paris soon afterwards. …will probably mark a date in the evolution of music.” harmonically so precisely calculated; its brilliant Indeed, the present work ends with three rising tones in Ernest Boulanger, a renowned conductor and composer, was Was this adulation more than the young composer exploitation of complex rhythmic simultaneities; or the the tubular bells – precisely the same motif that, in the 62; she 19 at the date of their marriage. Ernest Boulanger died could bear? Had Dyagilev put pressure on him, sheer unique sound-world that it evokes from the high Bassoon, opened L’Envol d’Icare. on 14 April, 1900; Raïssa on 19 March, 1935 – seventeen years conscious or unconscious, to be the new Stravinsky, orchestra. Above all, for the poise and emotional charge Thus does the “Hymn to Death” bring us full circle. and four days after the premature death of the brilliant youngest exactly thirty years on? His autobiography reveals a of its hypnotic “Death”. daughter, composer Lili. sense that the overnight glory which assailed him as The achievement of Igor Markevitch bridges © 1996 & 2009 Christopher Lyndon-Gee 9 “Prince” David Mdivani, a Georgian faux-nobleman resident Dyagilev’s protégé caused such a break with the normal important gaps in our understanding of the period

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between the wars. His language is aggressively (Nuptials) to Alfred Cortot (himself a composer). Cortot Each of the Hymnes (including the Prélude) is triangle and tam-tam. The song on which it is based was individual. Not neo-classical, it has classical restraint arranges for its publication, and invites Markevitch to based around a pastiche ‘Chorale’ theme, shorn written “to the memory of Mme. E. Boulanger”, 8 while and a poise that is almost frigidly disciplined. In an study with him. however of the slightest religious allusion. The mood of the Hymne à la Mort itself was commissioned by José- æsthetic distant from the transmuted romanticism that the work, and of these unifying ‘chorale’ melodies, is Maria Sert for the obsequies of Prince Mdivani, 9 but propels the music of Berg and Schoenberg, he initiated 1926-28 closer to that of the machine-age, materialistic Le apparently never performed for that purpose. an exploration of dissonance (through ) that Studies piano with Cortot, and harmony and Nouvel Âge (8.572152). In seeking to integrate Hymne à la Mort into the the perspective of the 1990s can readily identify as a counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger at the École In the original set of four movements (Hymne à la overall scheme of Hymnes, Markevitch tried various fertile harmonic path. Dissatisfied with what he seems Normale de Musique in Paris. Mort was composed later) Hymne Premier – also referred permutations. Thus, the Hymn to Death was at one time to have perceived as the indulgent prettiness of to as Hymne du Travail – was placed last. It too includes placed first after the Prélude; then, a new transition at impressionism, he sought a purity and detachment of 1929 substantial quotations from L’Envol d’Icare – far more the end of Hymne Troisième was added in 1980 to style which were rare in this interbellum period of Markevitch completes his diplomas at the École than a passing resemblance. Yet these “quotations” establish its now definitive position as the concluding excess. Normale, commencing his Sinfonietta for Orchestra as (primarily in the solo piano) are buried so deeply within movement. The present performance, however, rejects Igor Markevitch has so recently begun to emerge part of his qualifying work. Now sixteen, he plays the the complex and heavily orchestrated texture that they are that hastily-written transition as crude and by no means from the shadows in his “first incarnation” as a Sinfonietta and Noces to Dyagilev, who soon after all but inaudible. Thus we can speak of layers of meaning tonally more effective than the original. On the contrary, composer that an outline of the major events of this commissions two new works from him: a Piano like archæological relics, invisible until excavated by a reverting to Markevitch’s first thoughts maintains the early phase of his life will be illuminating; not least, Concerto, which receives a concert première close scrutiny of the score. The orchestral mass – dense important thematic link of the concluding cadence on G because it shows him in constant, intimate contact with sandwiched between ballets at the Covent Garden with rhythms of 2 against 4 against 5 against 6 – so that all four of the original movements have in common. innumerable other, and hitherto better-known major season of the Ballets Russes in July (with Markevitch successfully obscures this borrowed thematic material The opening section of the concluding Hymne à la figures of the century. himself as soloist); and L’Habit du Roi (The Emperor’s that it is more of a private note within the score, a residual Mort, and a brief recall are set in the score for Contralto New Clothes), a ballet with scenario by skeleton inside a baroque palimpsest. solo “ad libitum”. However, there is much to suggest that Chronology and designs by Picasso. The Hymne au Printemps (Hymn to Spring) this was never intended to pass beyond being a sub-text Only briefly before Dyagilev’s death on 19th develops with leisurely grace out of an improvisatory into actual song. First, the composer always spoke of the 1912 August, Markevitch accompanies him to Baden-Baden cadenza, first for clarinet alone, then for flute and vocal part as being purely optional. Second, it is written in Born in Ki’ev, 27th July, to the pianist Boris Markevitch for the world première of Hindemith and Brecht’s clarinet. It closes with mysterious chords combining F a register so extremely low that it can more accurately be (a student of Eugene d’Albert) and to Zola Pokitonova. Lehrstück; and to Munich for performances of Tristan major and E major. referred to as “baritone”, while calling for a female voice und Isolde and Die Zauberflöte conducted by Richard Hymne Troisième shares close thematic links with of a type that barely exists. Third, and most unusually 1914 Strauss. With Dyagilev dead, L’Habit du Roi is the Hymne du Travail; so much so that it is like a (think by contrast of the orchestral songs of Mahler, The Markevitch family flees Russia for Paris. abandoned, but some of its music is incorporated into “mirror-image” of that music in changed metrical and Rachmaninov), every note of the Markevitch grows up speaking primarily French, and Cantate with a new text specially written by Jean format. It is perhaps in this movement that Markevitch’s ‘sung’ line is instrumentally doubled, at times elaborately. will eventually write his autobiography Être et avoir été Cocteau. rhythmical experimentation is at its most sophisticated: Since the work’s origins as a song for voice and in French in 1980. for instance, a determined attempt by the woodwind and piano are transcended by the orchestral recomposition, 1930 pizzicato strings to impose a rhythm of 12/16 against the the present performance adopts the view that Markevitch 1916 Roger Désormière (who conducted Markevitch in his 3/4 chorale theme in the trumpets; and percussion the conductor would most likely have taken a pragmatic The family settles in La-Tour-de-Peilz (Vevey), Piano Concerto the previous year) presents the ostinati in periods of five, seven, eight and ten beats attitude to the limitations of his own scoring, preferring Switzerland. enormously successful première of Cantate in Paris on against the fundamental pulse. the orchestra to remain unencumbered and the text 4th June. Hymne à la Mort originally existed as an entirely “layered” beneath. Another palimpsest, in fact. 1921-23 In August, the publishing house of Schott (Mainz) separate piece. It was added to the set as an This brief underlying text for Hymne à la Mort was Igor studies piano with his father until the latter’s death accepts the Sinfonietta, the Piano Concerto and Cantate instrumentation and vocal arrangement of the last of the attributed in the score of the 1935 Trois Poèmes to in 1923. for publication. Trois Poèmes of 1935 for voice and piano; more than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. However, these lines 8th December: world première in Paris of Concerto doubled in length, however, by the addition of entirely cannot be located anywhere in Goethe, leading to the 1925 Grosso, reviewed as follows by no less than Darius new orchestral music and a coda presciently dominated conclusion that they are most likely a “paraphrase” or The thirteen-year-old Igor plays his piano suite Noces Milhaud in L’Europe of 13th December: by the almost Boulezian sounds of piano, tubular bells, parody written by Markevitch himself, much along the

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première of Rébus was reviewed in The New York Times slow, lyrical music of the entire score. This in turn is “Markévitch’s Concerto Grosso was one of those great 1934 by Henri Prunières, 4 and a year later the work was taken transformed by a gradual piling-up of the full orchestra rendings of the musical skies, a door suddenly opening Psaume is greeted by a riot at its Italian première in up by Serge Koussevitsky in Boston. into a slow stringendo on the same harmony, leading to on the future which allows an as yet unknown climate to Florence. Such concert performances apart, the Massine- Parade, one of Markevitch’s most original inventions. enter. Igor Markévitch has a formidable technique and a Markevitch collaboration was not having much luck, the The striking individuality of the sound of Parade is truly unique invention.” 1934-36 film project of the previous year, 1930, having also fallen due to two significant compositional choices: the Markevitch undertakes occasional conducting study through. Rébus, the would-be ballet, incorporates doubling of the same lines as bowed and as plucked 1931 with in Switzerland; Scherchen lengthy worked-out passages of the musical material of notes throughout the strings; and the harmonisation of Composes the Sérénade (January - March), perhaps his becomes one of the principal advocates of his music. the Cinéma-Ouverture (unperformed until 1995) that had the main melodic lines by adjacent tones, resulting in a most “Stravinskian” work, for the newly-formed been written for Massine’s aborted film. As well, we find “cluster” sound quality superimposed on tritone bass Parisian ensemble Sérénade. 1935 in the Variations movement of Rébus a recomposition of relationships. This singular sonic invention serves to On 24th April Hans Rosbaud conducts the German Substituting for Scherchen, Markevitch conducts the the impressive final section of Concerto Grosso (Naxos display a disciplined, restrained, coldly poised structure premières of Concerto Grosso and Piano Concerto with world première of his oratorio Le Paradis perdu 8.572153) in a more sophisticated orchestration and with that, commencing with the softest playing possible, the orchestra of Frankfurt Radio (the latter work with (Paradise Lost) at Queen’s Hall, London on 20th an entirely new conclusion. builds relentlessly and by finely judged degrees to a the composer as soloist). December. This fourth movement, Variations commences in a powerful conclusion. The world première of Rébus in Paris on 15th deceptively leisurely tempo that soon, by small degrees And the Parade (was this title borrowed from December is hailed as a major triumph for the 1936 of multiplication of note values acquires powerful Rimbaud?) does indeed present the listener with a composer. Writing in The New York Times for 10th Marries Kyra, daughter of , in April. momentum. The characterisation and pulse of this dignified procession of all of the themes of the previous January, 1932, Henri Prunières declares: They decide to live in Corsier, Switzerland. “driving force” are uniquely Markevitch’s own. All the movements – and more. For the music of L’Envol “I am in no particular hurry to proclaim the genius more difficult to comprehend, then, is his cadencing this d’Icare, which will not be composed until the following of even the most gifted musicians. But in the case of 1937 movement with a direct quotation of the rising tuba year, is also foreshadowed here. The young composer’s Markevitch, after the new work he has just given us, Conducts L’Envol d’Icare at the Venice Biennale in motif from the close of Part One of The Rite of Spring. 5 mind had the sureness of touch and of artistic vision to doubt is no longer permissible … his music is not September, remarking to fellow-composer Alex de Perhaps it was a homage: the latter work was also on the know exactly where he was going. young. He is a little like Menuhin, who, when he was Graeff : “I rejoice to hear it again, but I am nervous to programme within which Rébus was premiered. ten, played like a master and not like a child prodigy.” conduct it for the first time . . . it is so terribly difficult.” Moreover, Markevitch’s first truly assured, adult piece Hailed by many as the “second Igor”, Markevitch is Stravinsky (whose Jeu de Cartes is on the same is dedicated “to the memory of Serge de Diaghileff” Hymnes (Hymns) now persona non grata with Stravinsky. programme) is in the audience, and retreats from his who thirty years earlier had caused the conditions that La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland, late 1932 / Paris, earlier hostility to Markevitch, expressing admiration allowed Le Sacre du printemps to come into being. March - June 1933 1933 for the score. Let this necessary observation not be misleading: After being asked by Mengelberg to conduct the Dutch Stravinsky’s “influence” on the young Markevitch is Hymne à la Mort (Hymn to Death) première of Rébus with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1938 minimal. The nineteen-year-old composer’s style is Corsier, Switzerland July 1936 February, Markevitch takes conducting lessons from Contriving a commission fee as a New Year’s Day gift, brilliantly individual, whether dramatic and intense as in (who directs the remainder of this Piatigorsky requests a concerto. the Danse and Fugue, or virtuosically whimsical as in Hymnes is one of Markevitch’s most “experimental” concert). At this stage he sees conducting as a task The world première in Warsaw on 21st January of the Gigue. Though contrapuntally inclined by nature, compositions. Like Partita, 6 it was commissioned by purely in relation to his own music. The American Le Nouvel Âge marks a new triumph for the composer. Rébus is anchored by pivotal appearances of a tonally the Princesse de Polignac, the former Winnaretta Singer, première of Rébus follows in April, given by Serge On his way back from Poland, Markevitch visits ambiguous ‘thematic’ chord, (termed the ‘RÉBUS- whose visionary patronage saw its opportunity to Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony. Nijinsky for the first time in the sanatorium at chord’ by Alex de Graeff), just as is L’Envol d’Icare of nurture the twenty-year old composer’s potential shown On 26th June Désormière conducts the tumultuous Kreuzlingen; Kyra describes this meeting, and its effect a year later. The ever-more intense fugue culminates in in the considerable success his earlier work had had in première in Paris of L’Envol d’Icare (The Flight of on her father as “a marvel”. Performed at the Palais des a threefold stretto on the Bach-like “wedge” motif, led her salon. No matter that the Princess’s commission Icarus), declared by Milhaud to be “a date in the Beaux-Arts in Brussels in April, Le Nouvel Âge is by the third trombone, double-basses and timpani. This specified a work “for a small number of instruments”; 7 evolution of music”. Le Corbusier and Cocteau, as well acclaimed by an audience of two thousand. In response frenetic music is finally truncated by the intervention of he set about with elan the composition of a full-scale as many musicians of importance are among the to this performance, Léon Kochnitsky writes in the May the RÉBUS-chord, in transition to the sole passage of orchestral work. audience. issue of La Revue Musicale:

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“It is often said that a gulf exists between “dead between two lives” during his recuperation in Philharmonic Society in Brussels. The concert is a traceable to earlier practices of Parisian lawyers who, contemporary composers and the masses who are avid Fiesole; indeed, during the coming year he embarks on a success, and leads to over one hundred performances in sidestepping possible libel actions engaged in satire of for music. For Markevitch this gulf does not exist; in serious activity as conductor, giving a number of fifteen countries during the following three years. issues of the day in lampoons called De rebus quae that lies true genius.” concerts in Florence. In connection with the Brussels performances geruntur (“on the current events”); a fourteenth-century In June Markevitch begins a collaboration with (which Markevitch conducts himself), David Drew, then version of television’s politically inspired ‘rubbery Stravinsky’s one-time librettist C.-F. Ramuz on La 1943 Director of New Music at Boosey and Hawkes music figures’ or ‘Saturday Night Live’, perhaps. Taille de l’Homme, a “concert” for soprano and In October, Germany invades Italy. Markevitch publishers, London, makes contact with Markevitch. If this work commissioned by Léonid Massine had ensemble designed to last an entire evening. Owing to renounces his conducting commitments to join the Progressively over the next few years, Drew persuades ever been performed as a ballet, the audience was to worsening conditions in Europe, and the end of his Partisans, becoming a member of the Committee of Markevitch to unearth his entire œuvre, for which have been asked to guess the ‘Rébus’ suggested by its publishing contract in Germany, he supplements his Liberation of the Italian Resistance (the Partigiani). He Boosey and Hawkes offer a new and comprehensive various scenes, 1 writing down and submitting their income by giving lectures, piano recitals and radio recomposes L’Envol d’Icare as Icare, abandoning the publication contract. answers at the end of the performance. broadcasts in Switzerland and abroad. quarter-tones of the original work and re-orchestrating Nevertheless, the present series of recordings, Thus, the full titles of each scene, omitted from the in a less “astringent” manner. commenced eighteen years later in December 1995, are score, but strangely never deleted from the individual 1939 the première recordings of all but a handful of works orchestral parts of the Schott edition published in 1933, Between the outbreak in September of World War II, 1944 which are preserved from 1930s radio broadcasts, and a which are still provided as performing materials today, and Christmas, completes fifty minutes (the first, and A further serious illness. technically poor recording on 78s of L’Envol d’Icare are: only “half” ever finished) of La Taille de l’Homme. dating from 1938. 1946 PRÉLUDE au RÉBUS 1940 During a return visit to Switzerland writes Made in 1980 DANSE de PAUVRETÉ Visits Florence with Kyra, where he composes the Italy, a political study inspired in part by his experiences Publication by Gallimard of the composer’s GIGUE des NEZ “vocal symphony” Lorenzo Il Magnifico on texts by with the Florentine Partigiani which meets with autobiography, Être et avoir été (Being and having VARIATIONS de PAS Lorenzo de’ Medici himself. Markevitch has failed to considerable success on its publication in Italy, France been). To some extent a roman à clef, the book reveals FUGUE des VICES comply with Swiss residency laws, and is thus and Britain. much even as it hides or obfuscates more. PARADE technically stateless upon Mussolini’s declaration of In this year Markevitch undertakes revision of some war. He therefore remains in Italy, where Kyra teaches 1947-77 of his 1930s compositions, in preparation for a series of yielding the old French proverb “Pauvreté, n’est pas dance. Is naturalised as an Italian citizen in 1947. Following the performances in Brussels. vice” (“Poverty is no vice”). 2 dissolution of his first marriage, he marries Topazia The first performance of the work was given at the 1941-47 Caetani, descendant of a distinguished Roman 1983 Salle Gaveau by the Orchestre symphonique de Paris on The Markevitches live in the “villino” (little Villa), artistocratic line. Only a short time after his first, triumphant return visit 15th December, 1931. The composer is credited as provided by the art historian Bernard Berenson – who His international conducting career over this thirty- to Ki’ev, his city of birth, Markevitch suddenly falls ill, conductor in the preface to the score, while this rôle is describes the house as a “cottage in my grounds” – on year period will take Markevitch to music directorships dying in Antibes on 7th March. attributed to Roger Desormière in the Boosey and his Villa I Tatti estate at Settignano, three miles outside in Stockholm (1952-55), Montreal (1956-60), Havana Hawkes catalogue of Markevitch’s works. 3 To date, I Florence. Dallapiccola is among his circle of friends. In (1957-58), Paris (the Concerts Lamoureux, 1957-61), © 1996 and 2009 Christopher Lyndon-Gee have been unable to resolve this discrepancy, though I October 1941 he completes for the pianist Nikita Madrid (1965-69), Monte Carlo, and the Santa Cecilia tend – since Désormière was the conductor of the Magaloff, another Florence resident, his Variations, Orchestra in Rome. He also holds conducting courses in premières of others of Markevitch’s works – to ascribe Fugue and Envoi on a Theme of Handel for solo piano, Salzburg, Mexico, Moscow, Madrid, Monte Carlo and Rébus (Rebus) greater reliability to the score in this case. Should this be destined to be his last original composition. Weimar. La-Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland, August - October 1931 the truth, it was Markevitch’s first conducting engagement of real importance, to be swiftly followed 1942 1978 A ‘Rebus’ is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary less than a year later by his début with the He falls seriously ill towards the end of a “hard, hard Markevitch has effectively suppressed his music for 35 as “an enigmatic representation of a name, word, etc., Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam directing the winter” (as he describes it to Alex de Graeff in a letter of years when he receives an invitation from Hervé Thys to suggesting its syllables”. In France and the Netherlands same work. 7th April, 1942). The composer senses himself to be conduct Icare and Le Paradis perdu for the Royal it is an especially popular kind of word-game, perhaps Barely three weeks after the Paris performance, the

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“It is often said that a gulf exists between “dead between two lives” during his recuperation in Philharmonic Society in Brussels. The concert is a traceable to earlier practices of Parisian lawyers who, contemporary composers and the masses who are avid Fiesole; indeed, during the coming year he embarks on a success, and leads to over one hundred performances in sidestepping possible libel actions engaged in satire of for music. For Markevitch this gulf does not exist; in serious activity as conductor, giving a number of fifteen countries during the following three years. issues of the day in lampoons called De rebus quae that lies true genius.” concerts in Florence. In connection with the Brussels performances geruntur (“on the current events”); a fourteenth-century In June Markevitch begins a collaboration with (which Markevitch conducts himself), David Drew, then version of television’s politically inspired ‘rubbery Stravinsky’s one-time librettist C.-F. Ramuz on La 1943 Director of New Music at Boosey and Hawkes music figures’ or ‘Saturday Night Live’, perhaps. Taille de l’Homme, a “concert” for soprano and In October, Germany invades Italy. Markevitch publishers, London, makes contact with Markevitch. If this work commissioned by Léonid Massine had ensemble designed to last an entire evening. Owing to renounces his conducting commitments to join the Progressively over the next few years, Drew persuades ever been performed as a ballet, the audience was to worsening conditions in Europe, and the end of his Partisans, becoming a member of the Committee of Markevitch to unearth his entire œuvre, for which have been asked to guess the ‘Rébus’ suggested by its publishing contract in Germany, he supplements his Liberation of the Italian Resistance (the Partigiani). He Boosey and Hawkes offer a new and comprehensive various scenes, 1 writing down and submitting their income by giving lectures, piano recitals and radio recomposes L’Envol d’Icare as Icare, abandoning the publication contract. answers at the end of the performance. broadcasts in Switzerland and abroad. quarter-tones of the original work and re-orchestrating Nevertheless, the present series of recordings, Thus, the full titles of each scene, omitted from the in a less “astringent” manner. commenced eighteen years later in December 1995, are score, but strangely never deleted from the individual 1939 the première recordings of all but a handful of works orchestral parts of the Schott edition published in 1933, Between the outbreak in September of World War II, 1944 which are preserved from 1930s radio broadcasts, and a which are still provided as performing materials today, and Christmas, completes fifty minutes (the first, and A further serious illness. technically poor recording on 78s of L’Envol d’Icare are: only “half” ever finished) of La Taille de l’Homme. dating from 1938. 1946 PRÉLUDE au RÉBUS 1940 During a return visit to Switzerland writes Made in 1980 DANSE de PAUVRETÉ Visits Florence with Kyra, where he composes the Italy, a political study inspired in part by his experiences Publication by Gallimard of the composer’s GIGUE des NEZ “vocal symphony” Lorenzo Il Magnifico on texts by with the Florentine Partigiani which meets with autobiography, Être et avoir été (Being and having VARIATIONS de PAS Lorenzo de’ Medici himself. Markevitch has failed to considerable success on its publication in Italy, France been). To some extent a roman à clef, the book reveals FUGUE des VICES comply with Swiss residency laws, and is thus and Britain. much even as it hides or obfuscates more. PARADE technically stateless upon Mussolini’s declaration of In this year Markevitch undertakes revision of some war. He therefore remains in Italy, where Kyra teaches 1947-77 of his 1930s compositions, in preparation for a series of yielding the old French proverb “Pauvreté, n’est pas dance. Is naturalised as an Italian citizen in 1947. Following the performances in Brussels. vice” (“Poverty is no vice”). 2 dissolution of his first marriage, he marries Topazia The first performance of the work was given at the 1941-47 Caetani, descendant of a distinguished Roman 1983 Salle Gaveau by the Orchestre symphonique de Paris on The Markevitches live in the “villino” (little Villa), artistocratic line. Only a short time after his first, triumphant return visit 15th December, 1931. The composer is credited as provided by the art historian Bernard Berenson – who His international conducting career over this thirty- to Ki’ev, his city of birth, Markevitch suddenly falls ill, conductor in the preface to the score, while this rôle is describes the house as a “cottage in my grounds” – on year period will take Markevitch to music directorships dying in Antibes on 7th March. attributed to Roger Desormière in the Boosey and his Villa I Tatti estate at Settignano, three miles outside in Stockholm (1952-55), Montreal (1956-60), Havana Hawkes catalogue of Markevitch’s works. 3 To date, I Florence. Dallapiccola is among his circle of friends. In (1957-58), Paris (the Concerts Lamoureux, 1957-61), © 1996 and 2009 Christopher Lyndon-Gee have been unable to resolve this discrepancy, though I October 1941 he completes for the pianist Nikita Madrid (1965-69), Monte Carlo, and the Santa Cecilia tend – since Désormière was the conductor of the Magaloff, another Florence resident, his Variations, Orchestra in Rome. He also holds conducting courses in premières of others of Markevitch’s works – to ascribe Fugue and Envoi on a Theme of Handel for solo piano, Salzburg, Mexico, Moscow, Madrid, Monte Carlo and Rébus (Rebus) greater reliability to the score in this case. Should this be destined to be his last original composition. Weimar. La-Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland, August - October 1931 the truth, it was Markevitch’s first conducting engagement of real importance, to be swiftly followed 1942 1978 A ‘Rebus’ is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary less than a year later by his début with the He falls seriously ill towards the end of a “hard, hard Markevitch has effectively suppressed his music for 35 as “an enigmatic representation of a name, word, etc., Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam directing the winter” (as he describes it to Alex de Graeff in a letter of years when he receives an invitation from Hervé Thys to suggesting its syllables”. In France and the Netherlands same work. 7th April, 1942). The composer senses himself to be conduct Icare and Le Paradis perdu for the Royal it is an especially popular kind of word-game, perhaps Barely three weeks after the Paris performance, the

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première of Rébus was reviewed in The New York Times slow, lyrical music of the entire score. This in turn is “Markévitch’s Concerto Grosso was one of those great 1934 by Henri Prunières, 4 and a year later the work was taken transformed by a gradual piling-up of the full orchestra rendings of the musical skies, a door suddenly opening Psaume is greeted by a riot at its Italian première in up by Serge Koussevitsky in Boston. into a slow stringendo on the same harmony, leading to on the future which allows an as yet unknown climate to Florence. Such concert performances apart, the Massine- Parade, one of Markevitch’s most original inventions. enter. Igor Markévitch has a formidable technique and a Markevitch collaboration was not having much luck, the The striking individuality of the sound of Parade is truly unique invention.” 1934-36 film project of the previous year, 1930, having also fallen due to two significant compositional choices: the Markevitch undertakes occasional conducting study through. Rébus, the would-be ballet, incorporates doubling of the same lines as bowed and as plucked 1931 with Hermann Scherchen in Switzerland; Scherchen lengthy worked-out passages of the musical material of notes throughout the strings; and the harmonisation of Composes the Sérénade (January - March), perhaps his becomes one of the principal advocates of his music. the Cinéma-Ouverture (unperformed until 1995) that had the main melodic lines by adjacent tones, resulting in a most “Stravinskian” work, for the newly-formed been written for Massine’s aborted film. As well, we find “cluster” sound quality superimposed on tritone bass Parisian ensemble Sérénade. 1935 in the Variations movement of Rébus a recomposition of relationships. This singular sonic invention serves to On 24th April Hans Rosbaud conducts the German Substituting for Scherchen, Markevitch conducts the the impressive final section of Concerto Grosso (Naxos display a disciplined, restrained, coldly poised structure premières of Concerto Grosso and Piano Concerto with world première of his oratorio Le Paradis perdu 8.572153) in a more sophisticated orchestration and with that, commencing with the softest playing possible, the orchestra of Frankfurt Radio (the latter work with (Paradise Lost) at Queen’s Hall, London on 20th an entirely new conclusion. builds relentlessly and by finely judged degrees to a the composer as soloist). December. This fourth movement, Variations commences in a powerful conclusion. The world première of Rébus in Paris on 15th deceptively leisurely tempo that soon, by small degrees And the Parade (was this title borrowed from December is hailed as a major triumph for the 1936 of multiplication of note values acquires powerful Rimbaud?) does indeed present the listener with a composer. Writing in The New York Times for 10th Marries Kyra, daughter of Vaslav Nijinsky, in April. momentum. The characterisation and pulse of this dignified procession of all of the themes of the previous January, 1932, Henri Prunières declares: They decide to live in Corsier, Switzerland. “driving force” are uniquely Markevitch’s own. All the movements – and more. For the music of L’Envol “I am in no particular hurry to proclaim the genius more difficult to comprehend, then, is his cadencing this d’Icare, which will not be composed until the following of even the most gifted musicians. But in the case of 1937 movement with a direct quotation of the rising tuba year, is also foreshadowed here. The young composer’s Markevitch, after the new work he has just given us, Conducts L’Envol d’Icare at the Venice Biennale in motif from the close of Part One of The Rite of Spring. 5 mind had the sureness of touch and of artistic vision to doubt is no longer permissible … his music is not September, remarking to fellow-composer Alex de Perhaps it was a homage: the latter work was also on the know exactly where he was going. young. He is a little like Menuhin, who, when he was Graeff : “I rejoice to hear it again, but I am nervous to programme within which Rébus was premiered. ten, played like a master and not like a child prodigy.” conduct it for the first time . . . it is so terribly difficult.” Moreover, Markevitch’s first truly assured, adult piece Hailed by many as the “second Igor”, Markevitch is Stravinsky (whose Jeu de Cartes is on the same is dedicated “to the memory of Serge de Diaghileff” Hymnes (Hymns) now persona non grata with Stravinsky. programme) is in the audience, and retreats from his who thirty years earlier had caused the conditions that La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland, late 1932 / Paris, earlier hostility to Markevitch, expressing admiration allowed Le Sacre du printemps to come into being. March - June 1933 1933 for the score. Let this necessary observation not be misleading: After being asked by Mengelberg to conduct the Dutch Stravinsky’s “influence” on the young Markevitch is Hymne à la Mort (Hymn to Death) première of Rébus with the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1938 minimal. The nineteen-year-old composer’s style is Corsier, Switzerland July 1936 February, Markevitch takes conducting lessons from Contriving a commission fee as a New Year’s Day gift, brilliantly individual, whether dramatic and intense as in Pierre Monteux (who directs the remainder of this Piatigorsky requests a cello concerto. the Danse and Fugue, or virtuosically whimsical as in Hymnes is one of Markevitch’s most “experimental” concert). At this stage he sees conducting as a task The world première in Warsaw on 21st January of the Gigue. Though contrapuntally inclined by nature, compositions. Like Partita, 6 it was commissioned by purely in relation to his own music. The American Le Nouvel Âge marks a new triumph for the composer. Rébus is anchored by pivotal appearances of a tonally the Princesse de Polignac, the former Winnaretta Singer, première of Rébus follows in April, given by Serge On his way back from Poland, Markevitch visits ambiguous ‘thematic’ chord, (termed the ‘RÉBUS- whose visionary patronage saw its opportunity to Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony. Nijinsky for the first time in the sanatorium at chord’ by Alex de Graeff), just as is L’Envol d’Icare of nurture the twenty-year old composer’s potential shown On 26th June Désormière conducts the tumultuous Kreuzlingen; Kyra describes this meeting, and its effect a year later. The ever-more intense fugue culminates in in the considerable success his earlier work had had in première in Paris of L’Envol d’Icare (The Flight of on her father as “a marvel”. Performed at the Palais des a threefold stretto on the Bach-like “wedge” motif, led her salon. No matter that the Princess’s commission Icarus), declared by Milhaud to be “a date in the Beaux-Arts in Brussels in April, Le Nouvel Âge is by the third trombone, double-basses and timpani. This specified a work “for a small number of instruments”; 7 evolution of music”. Le Corbusier and Cocteau, as well acclaimed by an audience of two thousand. In response frenetic music is finally truncated by the intervention of he set about with elan the composition of a full-scale as many musicians of importance are among the to this performance, Léon Kochnitsky writes in the May the RÉBUS-chord, in transition to the sole passage of orchestral work. audience. issue of La Revue Musicale:

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between the wars. His language is aggressively (Nuptials) to Alfred Cortot (himself a composer). Cortot Each of the Hymnes (including the Prélude) is triangle and tam-tam. The song on which it is based was individual. Not neo-classical, it has classical restraint arranges for its publication, and invites Markevitch to based around a pastiche ‘Chorale’ theme, shorn written “to the memory of Mme. E. Boulanger”, 8 while and a poise that is almost frigidly disciplined. In an study with him. however of the slightest religious allusion. The mood of the Hymne à la Mort itself was commissioned by José- æsthetic distant from the transmuted romanticism that the work, and of these unifying ‘chorale’ melodies, is Maria Sert for the obsequies of Prince Mdivani, 9 but propels the music of Berg and Schoenberg, he initiated 1926-28 closer to that of the machine-age, materialistic Le apparently never performed for that purpose. an exploration of dissonance (through polytonality) that Studies piano with Cortot, and harmony and Nouvel Âge (8.572152). In seeking to integrate Hymne à la Mort into the the perspective of the 1990s can readily identify as a counterpoint with Nadia Boulanger at the École In the original set of four movements (Hymne à la overall scheme of Hymnes, Markevitch tried various fertile harmonic path. Dissatisfied with what he seems Normale de Musique in Paris. Mort was composed later) Hymne Premier – also referred permutations. Thus, the Hymn to Death was at one time to have perceived as the indulgent prettiness of to as Hymne du Travail – was placed last. It too includes placed first after the Prélude; then, a new transition at impressionism, he sought a purity and detachment of 1929 substantial quotations from L’Envol d’Icare – far more the end of Hymne Troisième was added in 1980 to style which were rare in this interbellum period of Markevitch completes his diplomas at the École than a passing resemblance. Yet these “quotations” establish its now definitive position as the concluding excess. Normale, commencing his Sinfonietta for Orchestra as (primarily in the solo piano) are buried so deeply within movement. The present performance, however, rejects Igor Markevitch has so recently begun to emerge part of his qualifying work. Now sixteen, he plays the the complex and heavily orchestrated texture that they are that hastily-written transition as crude and by no means from the shadows in his “first incarnation” as a Sinfonietta and Noces to Dyagilev, who soon after all but inaudible. Thus we can speak of layers of meaning tonally more effective than the original. On the contrary, composer that an outline of the major events of this commissions two new works from him: a Piano like archæological relics, invisible until excavated by a reverting to Markevitch’s first thoughts maintains the early phase of his life will be illuminating; not least, Concerto, which receives a concert première close scrutiny of the score. The orchestral mass – dense important thematic link of the concluding cadence on G because it shows him in constant, intimate contact with sandwiched between ballets at the Covent Garden with rhythms of 2 against 4 against 5 against 6 – so that all four of the original movements have in common. innumerable other, and hitherto better-known major season of the Ballets Russes in July (with Markevitch successfully obscures this borrowed thematic material The opening section of the concluding Hymne à la figures of the century. himself as soloist); and L’Habit du Roi (The Emperor’s that it is more of a private note within the score, a residual Mort, and a brief recall are set in the score for Contralto New Clothes), a ballet with scenario by Boris Kochno skeleton inside a baroque palimpsest. solo “ad libitum”. However, there is much to suggest that Chronology and designs by Picasso. The Hymne au Printemps (Hymn to Spring) this was never intended to pass beyond being a sub-text Only briefly before Dyagilev’s death on 19th develops with leisurely grace out of an improvisatory into actual song. First, the composer always spoke of the 1912 August, Markevitch accompanies him to Baden-Baden cadenza, first for clarinet alone, then for flute and vocal part as being purely optional. Second, it is written in Born in Ki’ev, 27th July, to the pianist Boris Markevitch for the world première of Hindemith and Brecht’s clarinet. It closes with mysterious chords combining F a register so extremely low that it can more accurately be (a student of Eugene d’Albert) and to Zola Pokitonova. Lehrstück; and to Munich for performances of Tristan major and E major. referred to as “baritone”, while calling for a female voice und Isolde and Die Zauberflöte conducted by Richard Hymne Troisième shares close thematic links with of a type that barely exists. Third, and most unusually 1914 Strauss. With Dyagilev dead, L’Habit du Roi is the Hymne du Travail; so much so that it is like a (think by contrast of the orchestral songs of Mahler, The Markevitch family flees Russia for Paris. abandoned, but some of its music is incorporated into “mirror-image” of that music in changed metrical Richard Strauss and Rachmaninov), every note of the Markevitch grows up speaking primarily French, and Cantate with a new text specially written by Jean format. It is perhaps in this movement that Markevitch’s ‘sung’ line is instrumentally doubled, at times elaborately. will eventually write his autobiography Être et avoir été Cocteau. rhythmical experimentation is at its most sophisticated: Since the work’s origins as a song for voice and in French in 1980. for instance, a determined attempt by the woodwind and piano are transcended by the orchestral recomposition, 1930 pizzicato strings to impose a rhythm of 12/16 against the the present performance adopts the view that Markevitch 1916 Roger Désormière (who conducted Markevitch in his 3/4 chorale theme in the trumpets; and percussion the conductor would most likely have taken a pragmatic The family settles in La-Tour-de-Peilz (Vevey), Piano Concerto the previous year) presents the ostinati in periods of five, seven, eight and ten beats attitude to the limitations of his own scoring, preferring Switzerland. enormously successful première of Cantate in Paris on against the fundamental pulse. the orchestra to remain unencumbered and the text 4th June. Hymne à la Mort originally existed as an entirely “layered” beneath. Another palimpsest, in fact. 1921-23 In August, the publishing house of Schott (Mainz) separate piece. It was added to the set as an This brief underlying text for Hymne à la Mort was Igor studies piano with his father until the latter’s death accepts the Sinfonietta, the Piano Concerto and Cantate instrumentation and vocal arrangement of the last of the attributed in the score of the 1935 Trois Poèmes to in 1923. for publication. Trois Poèmes of 1935 for voice and piano; more than Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. However, these lines 8th December: world première in Paris of Concerto doubled in length, however, by the addition of entirely cannot be located anywhere in Goethe, leading to the 1925 Grosso, reviewed as follows by no less than Darius new orchestral music and a coda presciently dominated conclusion that they are most likely a “paraphrase” or The thirteen-year-old Igor plays his piano suite Noces Milhaud in L’Europe of 13th December: by the almost Boulezian sounds of piano, tubular bells, parody written by Markevitch himself, much along the

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lines of the faux-Miltonic pretensions of the libretto for Reproduction of brief quotations permitted with ballet score, L’Habit du Roi (The Emperor’s New rhythms of adolescence that he felt a stranger had been his oratorio Le Paradis perdu (8.570773). Indeed, in Etre acknowledgement. For permission to use longer citations, Clothes), to be choreographed by Lifar with décor by born within, an alien persona that guided him beyond et avoir été, the composer refers to Milton and Goethe in please contact Naxos Rights International Ltd. Picasso. In short, he was at seventeen launched by any of his desires. the same breath; 10 so that it is not unreasonable to 1 “Argument: Ce ballet est la présentation théâtrale d’un Dyagilev on a path that brought worldwide fame as a It is undoubtedly more than coincidental that at conclude that he mimicked their work in a similar Rébus: La phrase a déviner est le proverbe français: “Pauvreté composer by the time he was twenty. nineteen Markevitch should have turned to the Icarus manner, his assertions of source notwithstanding. n’est pas vice”.” (Preface to the 1933 printing of the score of “I was his last discovery” were Markevitch’s words myth for his first truly individual work, L’Envol d’Icare, Rébus by B. Schott’s Söhne, Mainz, edition N°33.111.) in a revealing 1972 interview with the New York dance a score which he continued to re-work in various forms Déployez vous d’un vol adorable ! 2 Re-interpreted, perhaps, by the Ricardian economist Thomas critic John Gruen; and indeed, the manner in which for more than a decade. Icarus, who flew too close to the Célestes messagers, Hodgkinson in the early nineteenth century as “The distress our Dyagilev, “the greatest agent-provocateur that ever sun and fell to earth embodies a vivid image of the fate et vous saintes cohortes! people suffer, and the poverty we all complain of is not caused existed”, took him up must at least in part have been a of the young composer, swept along by the frenetic Apportez le repos à cette âme nouvelle ! by nature, but by some social institutions.” journey into nostalgia for the impresario. Markevitch Paris of the 1930s. Indeed, the most striking passage of Recevez-la donc, et donnez-lui la joie, 3 Tempo N°133-134, September 1980, p. 16 could hardly have entered more fully into the world of Icare is the lengthy, hypnotic, ecstatic-obsessive dans le balancement de votre lent cortège. 4 Henri Prunières, in The New York Times, January 10, 1932: the Ballets-Russes, as he went on to marry Nijinsky’s “Death” that concludes the work, occupying nearly one- “Today, when, according to the phrase of Paul Dukas, «we no daughter Kyra, though this marriage soon degenerated. third of its duration. Recevez cette âme nouvelle longer find our new talent in the list of the deceased but in the So much so that during their wartime life in Italy, The series of large-scale works that followed over et donnez-lui la Joie ! list of the births», we have had many disappointments … So I Bernard Berenson rather amusingly related that Igor and the following brief eight years is a succession of Amen. am in no particular hurry to proclaim the genius of even the Kyra used to visit him alternately, since “when they masterpieces in constantly changing languages. Rébus most gifted musicians. But in the case of Markevitch, after the were together their artistic temperaments tended to and Le Nouvel Âge both embody a Prokofiev-like Descend from that mystic flight new work he has just given us, doubt is no longer permissible … explode”. They were estranged four years into this nine- grittiness married to that motoric “moto perpetuo” Celestial messengers, His music is not young. He is a little like Menuhin, who, when year marriage, and Markevitch soon married again, quality that so typifies the music of Albert Roussel, but thou sacred hosts! he was 10, played like a master and not like a child prodigy. His though not before he and Kyra had had a son, Vaslav in a more pointed harmonic framework, and continuing Bring rest to this new-departed soul. accomplishments are amazing … When anyone congratulates (nicknamed “Funtyki”, or “small pound weight” by the exploration of multiple simultaneous polyrhythms Receive it and grant it joy, the admirable Nadia Boulanger on having made such a Berenson), named in honour of his grandfather. that are Markevitch’s trademark. The all-too-brief joined in the swaying of your slow procession. splendid pupil, she laughs and says that he knew the secrets of The music of this extraordinary young man betrays Cantique d’Amour is a ravishing Skryabinesque essay in counterpoint before he was born. I should add that on every no hint of immaturity: both in style and technique it is evocative color, yet curiously emotionally detached. Receive this new-departed soul, occasion Markevitch pays homage to his teacher.” complete, utterly assured and deeply original. His Psaume and the cantata-symphony Lorenzo Il Magnifico and grant it Joy ! 5 Cp. orchestral score of Rébus (edition cit.), p. 55, with Le Sacre Cantate of 1930, written on a text of Cocteau (and are massive and bold. The early works Sinfonietta, Amen. 11 du Printemps, Boosey & Hawkes edition N°19441, pp. 74 - 75. including music rescued from the sketches for L’Habit Concerto Grosso and Partita are memorable for far more 6 Naxos 8.570773. du Roi), brought forth the comment from Henri Sauget, than merely their youthful assurance of execution; their Definitively incorporated by Markevitch into the set 7 Sylvia Kahan, Music’s Modern Muse, A life of Winnaretta “…it bears witness to a very fine mastery, and to a harmonic language probes beyond the conventional in a only in 1980 (the same year he wrote his autobiography, Singer, Princesse de Polignac, Rochester NY, University of marvellous balance of intelligence and esprit”. This very personal manner, especially in their searchingly Etre et avoir été), this text for Hymne à la Mort also Rochester Press, 2003, p. 291 eighteen-year old, indeed, was hailed throughout Europe original polytonal and polyrhythmic treatments. implies a more than passing implication of salvation 8 Raïssa Mychetsky, mother of Nadia and Lili, born St. as perhaps the brightest hope in the musical firmament L’Envol d’Icare remains the singular work among from that flight that took him too close to the sun in the Petersburg 19 December, 1858, here referred to by her married of that time. Only three years later Darius Milhaud these masterpieces, whether for its ascetic, pointillistic 1930’s – and not for nothing does Goethe, too, recount title as “Mrs. E[rnest] Boulanger, following her marriage on 14 wrote of the première of L’Envol d’Icare: “this work scoring; its visionary use of quarter-tone tuning, the story of Icarus in the Third Act of Part II of Faust! September, 1877 and transferral to Paris soon afterwards. …will probably mark a date in the evolution of music.” harmonically so precisely calculated; its brilliant Indeed, the present work ends with three rising tones in Ernest Boulanger, a renowned conductor and composer, was Was this adulation more than the young composer exploitation of complex rhythmic simultaneities; or the the tubular bells – precisely the same motif that, in the 62; she 19 at the date of their marriage. Ernest Boulanger died could bear? Had Dyagilev put pressure on him, sheer unique sound-world that it evokes from the high Bassoon, opened L’Envol d’Icare. on 14 April, 1900; Raïssa on 19 March, 1935 – seventeen years conscious or unconscious, to be the new Stravinsky, orchestra. Above all, for the poise and emotional charge Thus does the “Hymn to Death” bring us full circle. and four days after the premature death of the brilliant youngest exactly thirty years on? His autobiography reveals a of its hypnotic “Death”. daughter, composer Lili. sense that the overnight glory which assailed him as The achievement of Igor Markevitch bridges © 1996 & 2009 Christopher Lyndon-Gee 9 “Prince” David Mdivani, a Georgian faux-nobleman resident Dyagilev’s protégé caused such a break with the normal important gaps in our understanding of the period

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Igor Markevitch (1912-1983) in Paris, primarily remembered as the fourth husband of the est-ce chez Goethe que, très ému par la mort de Mme Complete Orchestral Works • 4 actress Mae Murray (who appeared in Erich von Stroheim’s Boulanger, survenue le 19 mars 1935, je pris les paroles pour The Merry Widow in 1925), whom he married in 1926, un lied à sa mémoire, que j’envoyai le jour même à Nadia.” – This third volume of the complete orchestral works of himself “dead between two lives”. But this alone cannot separating soon after the birth of their only child in 1927 and “That which I subsequently elaborated [in Le Paradis perdu] Igor Markevitch includes the first recordings of fully explain the reasons for his abandoning divorcing in 1934. Something of a family of career spouses, his only maintained very hidden connections with Milton of whom, Cantique d’Amour and Concerto Grosso; L’Envol composition; and his autobiography Être et avoir été, younger brother Serge married Pola Negri; and third brother in the end, only the title, the opening invocation (”Hail, blessed d’Icare was previously recorded by the composer in published in 1980, obfuscates and misleads even as it Alexis wed, in quick succession, Louise Astor van Alen and light, who may know thy source?“) and the character of Satan, 1938 on poorly-preserved 78 rpm shellac discs. Other makes a show of revealing the writer’s inner life. Barbara Hutton. whose grandeur, often perceived as the creator who preceded than that single recording and a handful of radio Markevitch is dissimilar to the “conductor- 10 Igor Markevitch, Etre et avoir été, Paris 1980, p. 309 : “Ce God himself, dominates in such a magnificent manner the broadcasts, the present series is the first ever made of composer” model exemplified by Furtwängler, que j’élaborerais ensuite [dans ‘Le Paradis perdu’] ne derisory Mephistopheles of Goethe. This opinion does not the arrestingly original orchestral music of a composer Klemperer, Weingartner and many others between the garderait que des liens très secrets avec Milton dont, pour finir, diminish in the least my liking for Goethe. On the contrary, it hailed in the 1930s as one of the most challenging wars. On the contrary, he emerged first as a il ne resta que le titre, la première invocation (”Salut, lumière was from Goethe that I took the words for a Lied to the memory voices of his time, yet subsequently ignored – not least phenomenally gifted adolescent composer exalted by sacrée, qui dira ta source?“) et le caractère de Satan dont of Mme Boulanger, whose death on the 19th of March 1935 so by himself. Thus these discs may offer the beginnings of his contemporaries on the basis of an astoundingly j’admirais l’immensité de créateur précédant souvent Dieu, et moved me; I sent this song the very same day to Nadia.” an opportunity to decipher the mystery that is Igor assured series of early scores, turning to conducting qui domine, ô combien, le dérisoire Méphistophélès de Goethe. 11 English translation by Christopher Lyndon-Gee. Markevitch. almost reluctantly when required by his own work and Cette opinion ne diminue en rien mon goût pour Goethe. Ainsi The singular precedent of Rossini, who retired from by the hardships of post-war life. Yet, after changing the composition of opera at the age of 38 to become a course to this new career exclusively as conductor at restaurateur, but continued to write salon music and thirty, he all but denied the existence of his own music sacred works, seems hardly comparable. Markevitch’s until nearly seventy years old. When questioned in 1958 renunciation at 29 of his identity as a composer is a about his early life as composer, he diffidently replied: unique case in the history of music. To quote David “I would say to you, very frankly, that I am objective Drew, “It is a silence like no other in the music of this enough to claim that there is music which needs to be century or before”. heard before mine, and for which the need is more At first glance the eclipse during his lifetime of urgent. Apart from that, if my works are good enough, Markevitch’s reputation as a composer appears due, they can wait; and if they cannot wait, it is pointless to Het Gelders Orkest (Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra) more than any other single factor, to the dimensions of play them.” his success as a conductor. What has yet to be fully The facts of his “first life” are remarkable enough. Based in Arnhem, the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra gives some hundred symphony concerts each season in the explained, however, is why his life divides so Born in Ki’ev on 27th July, 1912, he moved with his province of Gelderland, in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, and abroad, including tours to Spain, Austria, dramatically and uncompromisingly into two halves – family to Paris in 1914, before settling in Switzerland. Germany and Hungary. In 2007 the orchestra toured Japan for the first time and returns there in 2009. From the clearly a conscious decision on his part, and one whose As early as the age of thirteen, he played his piano suite 2003-2004 season Martin Sieghart took over as Chief Conductor and artistic adviser of the orchestra. Ken-ichro true reasons this intensely private man seems to have Noces to Alfred Cortot, who recommended the work to Kobayashi was appointed Permanent Conductor from the 2006-2007 season, and Nikolai Alexeev Permanent Guest sought to keep hidden. Markevitch’s last original his publishers and invited the boy to study with him. In Conductor in 2002. Former Chief Conductors include Lawrence Renes, Roberto Benzi and Yoav Talmi. Other composition was written in 1941 at the age of 29, and he January 1929, before his seventeenth birthday, he conductors who have regularly made guest appearances with the orchestra in the past years include Bernard Klee, never again returned to the creative endeavours that had enraptured Dyagilev with his Sinfonietta in F, leading in Hans Vonk, Jaap van Zweden and Roy Goodman. Soloists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Leif Ove Andsnes, Zoltan brought him such renown and adulation when barely in a matter of months to the young composer completing Koscis, Nicolai Znaider and Akiko Suwanai are also among those who have performed with the orchestra. his twenties. The trauma of the Second World War and playing his new Piano Concerto at Covent Garden Recordings by the Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra include the symphonies of Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Brahms and marks a sharp dividing line during which the composer (in concert form between L’Après-midi d’un faune and Berlioz, with an enthusiastic reception by the press in both Japan and The Netherlands for recordings of Mahler’s appears to have undergone a mental, as well as physical Renard, at what the influential social columns of Sixth Symphony and Das Lied von der Erde. crisis, for in 1942 Markevitch suffered a serious illness London’s Sketch referred to as a “rehearsal party” for a while living in Tuscany, and in a letter of the same year select group of intelligentsia including, apparently, written during his recuperation declared that he sensed Virginia Woolf). Soon after, he started work on a major

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Christopher Lyndon-Gee Igor Christopher Lyndon-Gee was recently honoured as one of only three hundred conductors included in Naxos’s 600- page book and CD compilation A to Z of Conductors, covering the entire history of the art-form from Hans von Bülow and Arthur Nikisch to the present day. Christopher Lyndon-Gee was nominated for Grammys in 1998 for MARKEVITCH ‘Best Orchestral Performance’ for the first volume of his groundbreaking series of the complete works of Igor Markevitch (originally released on Marco Polo); in 2003 for the world première recording of George Rochberg’s Symphony No. 5 on Naxos American Classics; and again in 2007 for Hans Werner Henze’s Violin Concertos Nos. 1 Complete Orchestral Works • 4 and 3, with Peter Sheppard Skærved and the Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra (now the Deutsche Radio- Philharmonie). Other recordings have been listed among The Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’ in London, Fanfare magazine ‘Outstanding CDs of the Year’, Penguin Guide to Compact Discs’ multiple Rosettes and Key Recordings Rébus • Hymnes • Hymne à la Mort listings, and he won the Pizzicato prize in Luxembourg. He was named ‘Artist of the Year’ by the Australian National Critics Circle in 1994, and won the Sydney Opera Critics ‘Best Conductor’ award the same year. Acclaimed recent releases include George Rochberg’s Symphony No. 1 in its première recording (Naxos 8.559214); Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra • Lyndon-Gee volume 2 of the complete works of Edgard Varèse (8.557882), including the massive original version of Amériques, for an orchestra of 155 players; and the completion of the Markevitch complete works project, the oratorio Le Paradis perdu, released in 2008. Frequently invited to conduct at the Warsaw Autumn Festival, he conducted four world premières on a single concert at the Jubilee, Fiftieth anniversary Festival in 2007 – new symphonies by the Slovakian composer Roman Berger; Lithuania’s leading female composer Onute Narbutaite; and the Polish composers Jerzy Kornowicz and Aleksand’r Lason. In 2006 he led the closing concert at the November 2006 ‘Pawel Szymanski Festival’, also in Warsaw, featuring six of the major works of Poland’s leading composer of today. In 2008, a four-DVD set including this complete concert was released worldwide by Polskie Wydawnictwo Audiowizualne. As a composer, Lyndon-Gee was honoured by the Onassis Foundation Prize in 2001, has won the ‘Sounds Australian’ award three times, the Adolf Spivakovsky Prize, and the MacDowell Fellowship twice. In 2006, his setting from Dante’s Paradiso, ‘Frammento del Dante’, was premièred in Florence by the Echo- Klassiek prize-winning German ensemble SingerPur; Musik für SaitenInstrumente has had recent performances in several countries (including Vladivostock, in far eastern Russia); and ‘Over Litton’, after a poem of Edward Storey, was premièred in Wales as a 25th anniversary Presteigne Festival Commission before being taken up widely in New York, Australia and elsewhere. In progress are forthcoming commissions of a set of songs for Lute and Tenor voice, Lieder des Morgensterns; a new work for SingerPur on a text from Milton; a String Quartet; a second string orchestra work for the German conductor Eckart Schloifer, ‘… und unter den Blättern saß Er, weinend’; a work for ‘Harpsichord Unlimited’ in New York, Etudes canoniques; and a Symphony respectfully dedicated to the aboriginal heritage of Australia, Symphony of Dreamtime. Lyndon-Gee studied conducting under Rudolf Schwarz in London, and Franco Ferrara in Rome, where Leonard Bernstein heard him conduct a student concert, subsequently inviting him to study at Tanglewood. Here he later worked also under Maurice Abravanel, Erich Leinsdorf and others. He worked as Bruno Maderna’s assistant at La Scala, Milan, later becoming second conductor at the Teatro Regio in Turin, working also with the RAI orchestra in that city. He was co-founder with composer Lorenzo Ferrero of the Ensemble Fase Seconda, who premièred dozens of commissioned new works throughout Italy, Germany, France and at many international festivals. As composer, he studied with Goffredo Petrassi in Rome, Luciano Berio, Sylvano Bussotti and Jean Martinon. Britain’s great musicologist Arthur Hutchings remains a powerful guiding influence, several decades on.

8.572154 12 M A R K E V I T C H 8.570773 8.572152

E D I T I O N 8.572153

4 NAXOS NAXOS This fourth volume of Naxos’s acclaimed edition of Igor Markevitch’s Complete Orchestral Music presents two of his most intriguing works: Rébus, an enigmatic ballet commissioned by Léonid Massine but never performed as such, and Hymnes, one of Markevitch’s most experimental compositions (the ‘hymns’ are wordless and completely secular) to which, shortly before his death, he appended the Hymne à la Mort. Volumes 1-3 are available on 8.570773, 8.572152 and 8.572153.

MARKEVITCH: DDD MARKEVITCH: Igor 8.572154

MARKEVITCH Playing Time (1912-1983) 54:32 Complete Orchestral Works • 4 Rébus* 25:35 1 I. Prélude 2:04 2 II. Danse 3:54 Orchestral Works • 4 3 III. Gigue 2:33 Orchestral Works • 4 4 IV. Variations 3:44 5 V. Fugue 7:38 6 VI. Parade 5:43 Hymnes* / Hymne à la Mort* 28:57 www.naxos.com Disc made in Canada. Printed and assembled USA. Booklet notes in English ൿ 7 Prélude (Prelude) 5:11 Naxos Rights International Ltd.

8 Hymne Premier – Hymne du Travail 1997 & (First Hymn – Hymn of Work) 4:46 9 Hymne Second – Hymne au Printemps

(Second Hymn – Hymn to Spring) 5:39 Ꭿ 0 Hymne Troisième (Third Hymn) 5:32 2010 ! Hymne à la Mort (Hymn to Death) 7:49 Arnhem Philharmonic Orchestra • Christopher Lyndon-Gee Recorded at Musis Sacrum, Arnhem, The Netherlands, on 1st March, 1996 and on 15th June, 1996 With special thanks to Mr Hans Hierck, initiator of this project; and to Mr David Drew and Ms Janis Susskind of Boosey & Hawkes, who tirelessly supported its completion. 8.572154 Producer: Benno Torrenga • Engineer: Henk Midderham 8.572154 Publisher: Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd. • Booklet notes: Christopher Lyndon-Gee * World première recording • Previously released on Marco Polo 8.223724 Cover image: The Death of Federigo da Montefeltro by Gabriele Smargiassi (1798-1882) (Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Florence, Italy / The Bridgeman Art Library )