CD+DVD
The albums Russian Film Music I and II, performed by the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra under the batons of Konstantin Krimets and Sergei Skripta respectively, were released in 2000 and 2003, and became two of Bel Air’s best selling - and most acclaimed - recordings. Now a selection of the best tracks from those two CDs have been compiled for this set, which also contains a DVD of clips from the films for which the music was composed.
Some of the composers and music are well-known - Shostakovich’s scores for Hamlet and The Gadfly, and Prokofiev’s for Lieutenant Kijé, for instance - usually because suites were later also made for the concert hall. But how many of those who know this highly attractive music have ever seen the original movies? Many of the composers are still largely unknown to western ears, but one only has to listen to the irresistible melodies of Georgy Sviridov, Valery Gavrilin, Gennady Gladkov, Viktor Lebedev or Mikael Tariverdiev to be swept up in the thrilling and often moving world of Russian cinema.
The films featured range throughout much of the Soviet period - the earliest music heard is from the 1930s while the latest was composed in 1987. The DVD shows original film clips (with English subtitles) but synchronised with the digital quality sound tracks recorded by Bel Air Music (for Russian Film Music I & II) rather than the original film soundtracks. A few extracts of 1930s films were not produced because of inferior quality, so there are 19 film clips on the DVD (playing for over 2½ hours) but 24 tracks on the 79-minute CD. The DVD has one remarkable bonus track, the famous Adagio from the ballet ‘Spartacus’ by Khachaturian, filmed in 1968.
