Russian Violin Concertos Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra & Sergey Ostrovsky

• Jules Conus (1869-1942): Violin Concerto in E-
• 1 Violin Concerto in E minor 23:32
• Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996): Violin Concertino, Op.42
• 2 I. Allegretto cantabile 07:07
• 3 II. Cadenza. Lento - Adagio 06:48
• 4 III. Allegro moderato poco rubato 05:05
• Anton Stepanovich Arensky (1861-1906): Violin Concerto in A-, Op.54
• 5 Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 54 21:53
• Total Runtime 01:04:25

Info for Russian Violin Concertos

A world-premiere recording! Guided by Tchaikovsky’s influence, Anton Arensky’s neglected Violin Concerto is notable for its rich vein of melody and delicacy of orchestration. Julius Conus was a notable student of Arensky, and his virtuoso Violin Concerto, romantic in its variety of moods and expression, was once equal in popularity with that of Tchaikovsky. Mieczysław Weinberg, whose powerful Violin Concerto is available on Naxos 8.557194, was highly regarded by Shostakovich. The recently revived Violin Concertino, which predates the Violin Concerto by over a decade, is an arrestingly scored and often bittersweet work which here receives its world première recording. Multi-award-winning violinist Sergey Ostrovsky has been praised for his ‘marvellous tone’. (The Strad)

“It was wonderful to be able to record these concertos by Conus, Arensky, and Weinberg, particularly because these works are rarely programmed by orchestras these days. The Conus concerto was interesting to me because of its special association with violinists including greats such as Jascha Heifetz, and more recently, Itzhak Perlman.” (Sergey Ostrovsky)

Sergey Ostrovsky, violin
Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Sanderling, conductor

Sergey Ostrovsky - Violinist
Sergey Ostrovsky was born in 1975 in Gorky (Nizhny Novgorod) to a family of musicians, began playing violin at the age of six, and studied with David Lapidus as his first teacher. He made his first concert appearances at the age of eight, and performed for the first time with a symphony orchestra at the age of thirteen. He studied with Lazar Gantman and Yury Gluchovsky at the Gorky Conservatory, and in 1991 moved to Israel with his family and continued his studies with Yair Kless and Irina Svetlova at the Rubin Academy, Tel Aviv. In 1996 he founded the Aviv Quartet, which moved to Europe in order to study with the members of the Alban Berg Quartet at the Cologne Hochschule (1998- 2000), and with members of the Daniel Quartet at the Rotterdam Conservatory, where Ostrovsky completed his Bachelor Degree Diploma with Natalia Morozova in 2000, and his Master Degree Diploma at the Amsterdam Conservatory with Alexander Kerr in 2002. He participated in master-classes with Isaac Stern, Hermann Krebbers, Dorothy Delay, Ivry Gitlis, Ida Haendel and has served since 2007 as first concertmaster of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in Geneva, and from 2009 has taught at the Geneva Conservatory Haute Ecole de Musique. A winner of various international awards and with appearances in major concert- halls throughout the world, Sergey Ostrovsky plays a 1716 Giovanni Grancino violin, purchased with the generous support of Mr James Mayer and the Tzfonot Tarbut non- profit organization for support of the arts in Israel.

Thomas Sanderling - Conductor
Thomas Sanderling grew up in St Petersburg, where his father Kurt Sanderling was conductor of the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. After graduating from the Music School of the Leningrad Conservatory he studied conducting at the Hochschule für Musik in East Berlin. At the age of 24 he became Music Director of the Halle Opera, and at an early age appeared frequently with leading East German orchestras and opera houses, including the Dresden Staatskapelle and Leipzig Gewandhaus. At the request of the composer he gave the German premières of Shostakovich’s Thirteenth and Fourteenth Symphonies and made the world première recording of the composer’s last orchestral work, the Michelangelo Suite. This recording led to work as assistant to Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan. Thomas Sanderling has conducted extensively on the international stage, and is equally acclaimed for his operatic work. He was Permanent Guest Conductor of the Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin from 1978 to 1983, when he moved to the West. Since then he has conducted an extensive repertory of operas at some of the world’s leading opera houses. He enjoys a strong relationship with the St Petersburg Philharmonic and since 2000 he has served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2004 became Principal Guest Conductor of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia. He has won wide acclaim and a number of distinguished awards, and in recent years has recorded the complete orchestral works of Taneyev for Naxos. His other recordings, including Shostakovich premières for Deutsche Grammophon, have won considerable critical acclaim and recognition.

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra
Founded in 1893, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra has worked with many famous composers, conductors and musicians including Elgar, Sibelius, Holst, Stravinsky, Vaughan Williams and Thomas Beecham; and more recently with Michael Tippett, John Tavener and Peter Maxwell Davies. Principal conductors since the founder Sir Dan Godfrey have included Charles Groves, Constantin Silvestri, Andrew Litton, Marin Alsop and now by the dynamic young Ukrainian, Kirill Karabits. The BSO has toured worldwide, performing at Carnegie Hall, New York, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, and Berlin Philharmonie, as well as regular British appearances at the Royal Festival Hall and Royal Albert Hall in London, the Symphony Hall in Birmingham and the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. The BSO is known internationally through over three hundred recordings, and continues to release numerous CDs each year with Naxos. Recent critically acclaimed recordings have included CDs of Bernstein, Bartók, Sibelius, Glass, Adams and Elgar, and three discs featuring arrangements of Mussorgsky, Bach and Wagner by Stokowski were nominated for GRAMMY® awards in 2004, 2005 and 2006.

Booklet for Russian Violin Concertos