A while ago I received a recording of Bortkiewicz' Violin and Cello Concertos from a fellow forum member. Since it now seems that these recordings are copyright-free (something with the state and art for the people and all that) we've decided to post them here.
You can click the links below to listen the MP3 files (use right-click to download) in your browser. The Violin Concerto is in three movements, the Cello Concerto in two.
They are Ukranian in origin, but we don't know much about the performers (if you know, please tell us). Recordings aren't great, particularly the Cello Concerto, but good enough to appreciate what fine works these are. The links will remain active for two weeks.
Sergei Bortkiewicz, Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 22
First movement: http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/vc1.mp3 (http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/vc1.mp3)
Second movement: http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/vc2.mp3 (http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/vc2.mp3)
Third movement: http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/vc3.mp3 (http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/vc3.mp3)
Sergei Bortkiewicz, Cello Concerto in C minor, Op. 20
First movement: http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/cc1.mp3 (http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/cc1.mp3)
Second movement: http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/cc2.mp3 (http://www.archaeopteryx.nl/temp/bort/cc2.mp3)
Thanks very much Ilja! I wish they were available in a lossless format like Flac but beggers can't be choosers! ;D
Kevin
Hello Ilya
I just wanted to give you a huge Thank You for allowing me and indeed all the members of the forum the chance to download both the VC and the CC. I spent this morning listening to both works and loved them! The sound quality for me was good and in no way distracted me from fully appreciating the beauty of both works.Bortkowiecz now figures on my list of favourite composers and I will be looking out for any and all future releases of his works.
Again, many, many thanks!
Dear Ilja,
Thank you very much for allowing me to hear performances of these marvellously lyrical works. I have a score of the cello concerto, but the VC I did not know at all. Delicious music. Bortkiewicz is so underrated.
Indeed, lovely music. How soon might we expect a CD of them from NMI, Ilja?
That violin concerto is in D Minor, not D Major. Four years at UCLA and a degree in music weren't wasted on me, guys. I can tell the difference between minor and major modes in one chord.
Good for you, Jim.
Many thanks for these delicious works, Ilja. What a tonic they are!
Morning All,
Just to say thanks to Ilya for posting links to these fantastic works - the Violin concerto is particularly good. As always with these things, it leaves me wondering why these works aren't better known?
Yes, I was delighted to hear these works as Bortkiewicz is one of my favourite unsung composers - who obviously had good taste as he chose to be born exactly 70 years to the day before I was. I never suspected that I would ever hear these concertos - nor the Second and Third Piano Concertos - so this past month has yielded rich rewards.
Now, as to the provenence of the recordings of the Violin and Cello Concertos, I suspect that they may be computer-created. Listening to the Cello Concerto on headphones a couple of days ago, I noticed that the orchestral entries all seemed to enjoy perfect ensemble and the sforzandi were all perfect too. There was also something about the sound in general - very little, if any, resonance and slightly unnatural, especially the strings. On the other hand, the soloist seemed more natural - intonation was not always absolutely perfect in the more passionate passages. Unless anyone has any other ideas, I suspect that the orchestral part was created first and then the cellist dubbed the part on to it.
If I am correct, then I can only admire the person who probably took weeks to do all this work in order that we could hear these hitherto unknown concertos. Some years back, Mike posted the Cello Concerto and Second Piano Concerto to me on a cassette, in the form of a MIDI re-creation by some Borty devotee. It was very good to hear these, but the impression was that of the Mighty Wurlizer and while listening I kept getting small change out of my pocket to pay the usherette for a packet of popcorn. These new versions are infinitely superior.
What do you guys think?
...and by the way, the other three composers who share my birthday are also unjustfiably unsung! They are Zarebski, John Alden Carpenter and Parish-Alvars! Maybe I was born to be an unsung composer devotee. :-)
Quote from: HerbieG on Monday 07 September 2009, 15:05Now, as to the provenence of the recordings of the Violin and Cello Concertos, I suspect that they may be computer-created. Listening to the Cello Concerto on headphones a couple of days ago, I noticed that the orchestral entries all seemed to enjoy perfect ensemble and the sforzandi were all perfect too. There was also something about the sound in general - very little, if any, resonance and slightly unnatural, especially the strings. On the other hand, the soloist seemed more natural - intonation was not always absolutely perfect in the more passionate passages. Unless anyone has any other ideas, I suspect that the orchestral part was created first and then the cellist dubbed the part on to it.
The only thing I can say with some certainty is that the recordings were certainly
not computer-generated. They were made in the Ukraine somewhere in the 1980s (in the case of the Violin Concerto) or before (Cello Concerto). If they WERE computer-generated, the Soviet Union had some amazing tricks up its sleeve after all. Any sense of 'perfection' can therefore be considered a compliment to the Ukranian orchestra(s).
Unfortunately the links seem to be dead now.
Well, I finally got my hands on these works, thanks to a fellow Forum member. The beginning of the violin concerto is instantly memorable, but I'm still assimilating the rest of the works. The second subject in the first movement of the VC reminded me of something I had heard before. Turns out to be slightly reminiscent of the second theme in the first movement of the Karlowicz VC. I think they both start out with the same melodic pattern. I seem to recall that previously I've mentioned that Bortkiewicz isn't strong on development. I'll have to give these works more time, but in the violin concerto he appears to use a central contrasting episode of new material rather than a development in the first movement. The cello concerto is a more sprawling work, which resembles PC 2 in its organization. I'll have to really familiarize myself with it before I have anything more to say, but they were both excellent works.
Sadly, these links are indeed now dead.
Does anybody have a copy of these that they could somehow get to me? I would do just about anything to get my hands on these recordings; Bortkiewicz is one of my favourite composers.
Hi Guys,
Sorry for deleting the files, but I needed the space. I've restored the links; happy downloading!
Fantastic, thanks!
Thank you very much!
By the way, the aforementioned aficianado is Bhagwan Thadani, who has not only written about and published scores of Bortkiewicz's, but recorded many CDs of his music (including synthesized versions of these concertos and his Russian Rhapsody for Orchestra)
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2000/mar00/thadani.htm (http://www.musicweb-international.com/classRev/2000/mar00/thadani.htm)
--
Jim Moskowitz
The Unknown Composers Page: http://kith.org/jimmosk/TOC.html
My latest list of unusual classical CDs for auction: http://tinyurl.com/jimmosk
These VC and CC recordings seem to be an Ukrainian bootleg, and are not coming from Bhagwan Thadani.
Originally it was a gift from Wouter Kalkman, producer of the 3 double Cd's with Bortkiewicz piano music (if you love Bortkiewicz, these are warmly recommended) and the creator of www.bortkiewicz.com (http://www.bortkiewicz.com)
We are very grateful to Wouter Kalkman for that disc and to Ilja, who made it possible for us to download these delightful concertos. Let's hope these concertos get a commercial recording in the near future.
Sorry to ask again, but I too would love to hear these works. The links don't appear to
function any more. Any chance they could be restored? Thanks.
Robert
Hi, that's strange. The files are still there and when I test them they work. Could you tell me what goes wrong?
Late August 2010 - the links are working fine. My first try at the VC first movement got me a 130KB download but the second try netted the whole 20megs. Thanks so much Ilja
Bortkiewicz Service Announcement:
Because I decided to drop the FTP space connected to the domain I hosted the Bortkiewicz violin and cello concertos on, I have had to move them to a new location. Click here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/314182/bort.zip (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/314182/bort.zip) to download a zipped file containing both concertos.
QuoteBhagwan Thadani, who has not only written about and published scores of Bortkiewicz's, but recorded many CDs of his music (including synthesized versions of these concertos and his Russian Rhapsody for Orchestra)
And very nasty they are too, I'm sorry to say.
Quote from: Gareth Vaughan on Monday 06 September 2010, 16:35
QuoteBhagwan Thadani, who has not only written about and published scores of Bortkiewicz's, but recorded many CDs of his music (including synthesized versions of these concertos and his Russian Rhapsody for Orchestra)
And very nasty they are too, I'm sorry to say.
Yes indeed. I admire the range and research that he has done but the concertos disc and sampler that I have are nearly unbearable to listen to and are full of mistakes in any case i.e. octaves where one note has been flattened or sharpened and the other hasn't. The kind of things that programmes like "Sibelius" or "finale" are apt to do if you're not careful.
Precisely so.
I thought the DVD was a little better, but is so long since i watched it I cannot be sure.
The recordings are pretty horrid but the man deserves a medal for the work.
Thal
Hi guys!
I was wondering if anyone could repost the Berkowitz concertos? My Sony desktop bit the dust after a long life and I lost all my files. I loved listening to those on a regular basis and miss them very much. If anyone could help it would be appreciated.
Kevin
Try burning them to CD so you have a backup this time.
Quote from: JimL on Saturday 18 September 2010, 21:35
Try burning them to CD so you have a backup this time.
Well Jim...I know that would have been the smart thing to do but even burning is no guarantee. I have a whole lot of CD-Rs that I burned with backups which no longer play. I had everything on my PC backed up to an external drive but unfortunately my external was the first thing to show signs of problems and died about three days before my PC did. I am assuming that I was a victim of a recent thunderstorm. In any case a thousand dollars later I'm back in business.
Kevin
Burning CDs or even DVDs takes far too long for my 300GB+ music collection - never mind about restoring the bunch.
I did have a hard drive failure in late 2006; most of it I recovered from CDs here and there, but it did teach me to take backups seriously. Now, everything goes to an external hard drive and most of my critical stuff (documents, photos and recordings unavailable in the commercial circuit) goes to my Dropbox. Still no absolute guarantee, but it goes a long way.
I don't keep anything important on any sort of hard drive at all - without burning to CD, that is. Call me old-fashioned...
Well, as I stated above I have a lot of CDs that I burned several years ago that now won't play. So CDs are not any more reliable than hard drives, in fact I would even say less so. I think the likelihood of losing your external and internal drives within days of each other is pretty low and I do think backing up to an external is much safer and more reliable than CDs.
In any case I guess nobody is willing to host the Bortkiewicz files again so I can hear them again?
Kevin
I may be able to copy the CD someone sent me into my iTunes and then send it to you via WeTransfer. Would that work for you?
Quote from: JimL on Wednesday 22 September 2010, 00:41
I may be able to copy the CD someone sent me into my iTunes and then send it to you via WeTransfer. Would that work for you?
I'd rather have the mp3s again because if you made a wav file CD out of the mp3s it would mean more loss for me to compress them back to mp3 again. Thanks for the offer though! ;)
Kevin
Quote from: Gareth Vaughan on Saturday 05 September 2009, 18:51
Dear Ilja,
Thank you very much for allowing me to hear performances of these marvellously lyrical works. I have a score of the cello concerto, but the VC I did not know at all. Delicious music. Bortkiewicz is so underrated.
As the cello concerto was published before 1923 (composed 1915, published by D. Rahter in 1922) it's CA- and US- out of copyright (though not EU-, alas), and anyone in whose region it is out of (c) who could legally scan a score (full or piano-reduced) version of this in, and upload it to imslp.org or a similar site, would have many people's gratitude obviously. Apologies if this is the wrong forum for such things... (the violin concerto just misses- composed 1922, pub. 1923. But that just means us US people would be out of luck- still good to have it in for Canadian (and etc.) users if, again, one can legally scan it in the first place.)
Quote from: Kevin Pearson on Wednesday 22 September 2010, 00:20
Well, as I stated above I have a lot of CDs that I burned several years ago that now won't play. So CDs are not any more reliable than hard drives, in fact I would even say less so. I
My own CDs are in pretty good health. Anyway, I'd rather lose the odd one of those than everything on a hard drive...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Wednesday 22 September 2010, 17:57
Quote from: Kevin Pearson on Wednesday 22 September 2010, 00:20
Well, as I stated above I have a lot of CDs that I burned several years ago that now won't play. So CDs are not any more reliable than hard drives, in fact I would even say less so. I
My own CDs are in pretty good health. Anyway, I'd rather lose the odd one of those than everything on a hard drive...
as that has happened to me twice in a few years, I'm very glad for backups and, the second time around, for "Time Machine"...
ah, I knew I was sent a photocopy of the first page of the cello concerto. Since the files of the cello concerto come without movement indications, I thought I'd mention the first movement's heading is "Andante". I don't know the 2nd movement (section- it's a 'cello concerto in einem Satz'; there is no second movement really) tempo heading.
(cop. 1922, maybe someone will scan in the score and upload it sometime... it's PD-US and CA though not EU.)
Eric
Quote from: Kevin Pearson on Wednesday 22 September 2010, 00:20
Well, as I stated above I have a lot of CDs that I burned several years ago that now won't play. So CDs are not any more reliable than hard drives, in fact I would even say less so. I think the likelihood of losing your external and internal drives within days of each other is pretty low and I do think backing up to an external is much safer and more reliable than CDs.
In any case I guess nobody is willing to host the Bortkiewicz files again so I can hear them again?
Kevin,
Use this link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/314182/bort.zip (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/314182/bort.zip)
Hard drives. Probably I'm preaching to the choir here but maybe someone will benefit from my 30+ years of computing. Hard drives will fail eventually, especially if you're like me and keep your computer on 24/7 except when you're away from home for extended periods. After all, what basically makes 'em go is an electric motor. Even external hard drives will fail under those circumstances. Usually not as quickly.
But good external drives ARE very cheap. A 2 terrabyte drive by Western Digital is 119$ at amazon usa. Or as little as 79$ for 1 Tbyte...... You can put a lot of music/scores/documents on a drive that large. Set it up so that you can easily connect and disconnect it when not in use and it should last almost forever.
Quote from: Ilja on Friday 04 September 2009, 08:33
A while ago I received a recording of Bortkiewicz' Violin and Cello Concertos from a fellow forum member. Since it now seems that these recordings are copyright-free (something with the state and art for the people and all that) we've decided to post them here.
They are Ukranian in origin, but we don't know much about the performers (if you know, please tell us).
According to the website http://classic-online.ru, the artist information for the recordings of these concertos is as follows:
Cello Concerto
http://classic-online.ru/ru/production/21927 (http://classic-online.ru/ru/production/21927)
Cellist - Vladimir Nor,
"Philharmonia" Academic Symphony Orchestra of Chernigov
Conductor - Nikolai Sukach
Violin Concerto
http://classic-online.ru/ru/production/14121 (http://classic-online.ru/ru/production/14121)
Violinist - Anatoly Bazhenov
"Philharmonia" Academic Symphony Orchestra of Chernigov
Conductor - Nikolai Sukach
With the violin concerto there is a note which translates as: "
This recording was made in the Columned Hall of the National Philharmonia of Ukraine. A.Bazhenov is accompanied by the "Philharmonia" Academic Symphony Orchestra of Chernigov, Ukraine, under the direction of N.Sukach. Currently this is the only orchestra which has played everything symphonic by Bortkiewicz."
Many thanks for this interesting information, Christopher!
Sorry to bump an old thread with my first post, but does anyone have the ability to post up these Bortkiewicz Violin/Cello concerti one more time? I would love to hear them. :)
Any chance these two beauties will ever be recorded? Hyperion maybe.... ;)
they HAVE been recorded....
I meant A modern Stereo recording!
Dear Ilja,
Might you be so very kind as to re-upload these files, please? l'm a great lover of Bortkiewicz and would love to hear these works,
Thanks, Craig
Here's a video with his cello concerto - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6B9p6HZV0GM).
Here's the violin concerto (not the Levitin recording on Dutton, I think) - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUiPE-TlUB0).
The violin concerto's been recorded commercially on Dutton (recently), the cello concerto not yet (there's a synthesizer recording in Thadani's series).
Picked up a nice find today at thehthrifit store where I do the electronics. It is Sergei Borkiewicz Piano Concerto No. 1 on Hyperion fora $1.oo. What is the general consensus of his work. Frankly I'm not too impressed with him very much Rachmaninoff like or am I missing the boat? Stephen Coombs seems at home with him.`
Don't look for much in terms of development, but he could write melancholic tunes that would charm anyone. If you don't compare his music to Rachmaninoff, his music can pretty much stand for itself. Try his and Piano Concerto No. 2 & Symphonies. The Violin Concerto is also very rewarding.
The VC's too long, though. His PCs and symphonies are superior, I think.
I agree that the VC is a bit long but the melodies are pretty engaging so it doesn't drag much.
I find the opposite - at 50 minutes it definitely drags. But no matter; it's an enjoyable listen.
I'll have another listen today and see if I get a different feeling. I got some new CD cabinets on sale so I'm in the process of rearranging my CD's, which is long overdue. I'm finding material I forgot about. :)