Don't hesitate, BobbyZ. Both pieces on that Roslavets CD are quite fascinating, and I found the slow movement of the Chamber Symphony in particular very striking and memorable.
Absolutely agreed - the Chamber Symphony in particular is a most remarkable recent discovery, marred only by a banal ending to the first movement and an even more banal (and indeed similarly so) ending to the entire work; a splendid, tense and engaging piece (though quite why he incorporated the piano into the ensemble with a largely bit-part and then suddenly gives it a kind of cadenza in the slow movement as though he was actually composing a piano concerto remains a mystery to me). Why was Roslavets motivated to write in this manner akin to Schönberg's hypertense, edge-of-tonality expressions of some 30 years earlier at this stage in his career? and, more provocatively (albeit unrealistically so, as I admit!), why did Schönberg resume work on his Second Chamber Symphony almost immediately after Roslavets had completed his? - did he know it, or know of it? (it seems pretty unlikely). The other piece on the CD,
In the Hours of the New Moon, stops short of its real ending on the CD because the decision was apparently taken to end the recorded performance at the point where Roslavets's ms. breaks off (its final pages having appaently been torn off and not found, evidently), which is abit embarrassing, since Malcolm MacDonald's customarily excellent liner notes describe the actual end (which he saw in Raskatov's reconstructed score) which is not only not represented on this CD but also not included in the only other recording of the work to date, which is the world première recording of some years earlier, conducted by Heinz Holliger...
Go buy!
Best,
Alistair
