Russian Soulscapes
Painting by Gennady Shlykov
Russian Soulscapes
Ivan Sokolov’s String Trio and Piano Quartet abound with intoxicating themes, bird song imitations, chromatic harmonies, enharmonic modulations, and cascading sonorities that create a rainbow of sounds in an array of movements inspired by Russian masters.
Release date: February 14, 2014
Just Plain Folks 2020 Music Awards
Best Contemporary Classical Album
Third Place: Russian Soulscapes
CDs and downloads now available at iTunes
Russian Soulscapes
Chamber Music by Ivan Sokolov
String Trio & Piano Quartet
Karen Bentley Pollick, Violin
Basil Vendryes, Viola
Richard Slavich, Cello
Ivan Sokolov, Piano
Russian Soulscapes, the sequel recording to <amberwood> and Homage to Fiddlers, celebrates a decade of collaboration between Ivan Sokolov and Karen Bentley Pollick.
We first met as guest artists during the Seattle Chamber Players Icebreaker II: Baltic Voices Festival in February 2004 and have since presented recitals in Seattle, New York City, Birmingham, Baton Rouge, Denver, San Francisco, the Czech Republic, and at the American Academy of Rome, where we premiered duos composed by Dorothy Hindman and Charles Norman Mason during his 2005 Samuel Barber Rome Prize Fellowship.
In September 2007 cellist Dennis Parker joined us in Birmingham for the very first all-Sokolov concert comprised of the Violin and Viola Sonatas featured on <amberwood> and the Cello Sonata and Piano Trio recorded on Homage to Fiddlers. On January 30, 2008, while en route to the airport to return to Moscow after recording the Cello Sonata and Piano Trio in Seattle, Sokolov hummed the opening six bar theme for his emerging Piano Quartet, offering an initial glimpse at the epic scale of the three movement composition that he completed in August 2010.
The first sonata movement forms the core of the entire quartet, expressing a rainbow of emotions with expansive harmonic and thematic development and interjections of birdsong. Sokolov’s image of ‘murmuring monks in the basement of a monastery amidst outbursts of turbulence’ is depicted in the darker second movement. “I see this movement as a prayer for the world that had been expressed in the first movement.” The Finale portrays youthful exuberance and springtime energies. “It expresses the light, momentous and blissful mood that embraces you when the soul is peaceful, joyful and quiet. As in a dream, the subjects from the first movements are remembered.”
We premiered the Piano Quartet in Seattle on November 1, 2011 with violist Laura Renz and cellist Page Smith at the Chapel of Good Shepherd Center. In March 2013 we performed at Lord of the Mountains Church in Dillon, Colorado with Basil Vendryes, Principal Violist of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra, and Richard Slavich, Professor of Cello and Chamber Music at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music, where we recorded in Hamilton Recital Hall.
Sokolov’s String Trio from 2009 merges elements of Beethoven’s Serenade Op. 25 for flute, violin and viola with salon music and requires considerable virtuosity from the performers to create halos of overtones in the stratospheric registers and lush romantic textures amidst soulful melodies and dance rhythms evocative of Shostakovich and other Russian influences. The seven – movement String Trio combines the suite principle with elements of a sonata cycle. All movements except the last one are interludes or episodes connected with each other thematically and by their contemplative or lighthearted content. The Prologue is a brief sonata in C minor with a lingering incompleteness. The Waltz evokes nostalgia for Glinka and Tchaikovsky and has a fleeting middle section in 7/4 meter. A short Interlude with a solo for each instrument and heartfelt Aria are both reminiscent of Grieg, and akin to early Rachmaninov and Myaskovsky. The Chopinesque Recitative opens with a bold violin statement on the G- string. A radiant viola solo is the highlight of the Nocturne with a nod to Borodin. In the last measures of the Nocturne the mood and thematic elements of the first movement return. An energetic Epilogue propelled by triplets that Sokolov describes as ‘swimming with expansive strokes in the Black Sea’ concludes the String Trio.
Both chamber works comprise a deep listening experience and substantial array of movements. Bringing these compositions to the stage and recording studio has been a rewarding experience for us. We invite you to delve into the sonic realm of Ivan Sokolov’s intoxicating themes, bird song imitations, chromatic harmonies, enharmonic modulations, and cascading sonorities that permeate Russian Soulscapes.
-Karen Bentley Pollick
Ivan Sokolov (b.1960) has established himself as a leading figure of the Russian music scene for over three decades as a pianist, composer, and educator. An insightful interpreter and dazzling performer of baroque, classical, and romantic repertoire, Sokolov is also an internationally acclaimed champion of new music and rarely heard works. His close collaborations with composers such as E. Denisov, S. Gubaidulina, N. Sidelnikov, A. Schnittke, G. Ustvolskaya, V. Silvestrov, A. Vustin, N. Korndorf and A. Raskatov have resulted in Sokolov’s numerous world premieres of their works, as well as in other major projects such as recording the complete Piano Sonatas and Preludes by Ustvolskaya under the Triton label.
Sokolov is widely recognized as a groundbreaking artist who introduced Russian audiences to the Western European and American avant-garde composers K. Stockhausen, P. Boulez, G. Crumb, J. Cage and M. Feldman. He was among the founders and major performers at the famous Alternativa New Music Festival held in Moscow at the start of perestroika. He graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where his primary teachers were Lev Naumov (piano) and Nikolai Sidelnikov (composition).
Performed in Russia and beyond, Sokolov possesses a striking ability to compose in different styles while constantly searching for a unique stylistic approach that reveals the deepest semantic level of music. He has written one opera, two instrumental theater pieces, more than twenty chamber music works, over ten pieces for percussion ensemble, about two hundred songs, and music for choir, vocal ensembles, piano, and other solo instruments.
As an educator, Ivan Sokolov serves as a faculty member of the Russian Gnessin Academy of Music and the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory where he teaches a highly demanding course called Study of Musical Content, which is closely linked with his own intensive compositional work. He also teaches 20th and 21st century piano music at the Department of Historic and Contemporary Performance.
Special thanks to: Nan Bentley, David Pollick, Sergey & Elena Dubinets, Natasha Platonova, Petra Mattion-Sokolov, Stuart Diamond & Nevena Silic, Dennis Parker, Steve Peters, Len Rhodes, Ofer Ben-Amots, Jasper Schmich Kinney, Brad & Jenny Smalling, JoAn & Bill Chace, Alain Rossmann & Joanna Hoffman, Bahman Saless, Irina Rybacek, Chapel of Good Shepherd Center, Lord of the Mountains Church, Summit Music and Arts and Lamont School of Music.
Tracks 1 – 7
Trio for Violin, Viola and Cello (2009)
I Prologue 07:09
II Waltz 05:15
III Interlude 00:56
IV Aria 04:03
V Recitative 04:15
VI Nocturne 06:16
VII Epilogue 04:46
Tracks 8 – 10
Quartet for Violin, Viola, Cello and Piano (2010)
I Moderato 18:52
II Andante 08:07
III Allegro moderato 10:47
Total Running Time: 70:22
Copyright 2014 Ariel Ventures
Evergreen, Colorado
Recorded on March 18 & 19, 2013 in Hamilton Recital Hall
Lamont School of Music at University of Denver
Engineered & Edited by Sam McGuire
Mixed & Mastered by Brad Smalling, Evergroove Studio
Produced by Karen Bentley Pollick
Violin by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, Paris 1860
Viola by Carlo Cerruti,Turin 1887
Cello by Michael Scoggins, Salt Lake City 1990
Steinway Model C Grand Piano, Hamburg 2001
Graphic Design: Luis Sandoval, Oneiro Media
Cover Photo: Painting by Gennady Shlykov ‘Birdcatcher’ copyright 2006
Replication: Eyedea Worx, Denver
Photo credits: Karen Bentley Pollick, David Pollick, Jim Mimna & Eric Weber
Printed in the USA
All rights reserved
Made in Colorado
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