2011 Igor Raykhelson: Viola Concerto; Violin Concerto Toccata Classics

In the words of his friend the violist and conductor Yuri Bashmet, the composer-pianist Igor Raykhelson – born in Leningrad in 1961 and now resident in New York – ‘possesses a superb mastery of both classical and jazz idioms’. The unashamed Romanticism of Raykhelson’s Violin Concerto (2007) and its emphasis on melody place it downstream from Korngold, and though the Viola Concerto (2005) has its darker moments, its vigorous, jazz-tinged finale has the knock-about good humour of Rodion Shchedrin.

Artist list

Yuri Bashmet (viola)

Nikolay Sochenko (violin)

"New Russia" orchestra

Conductors: Claudio Vandelli, Alexander Slatkovsky