One of the most prestigious and consequential revivals of unknown composers undertaken by the Marco Polo label in the 1990s was its series of seven discs devoted to Igor Markevitch. Best known as an expert conductor of Russian music, particularly that of Stravinsky, Markevitch abandoned composing after a lengthy illness in 1941-1942 apparently deprived him of his gift; he was only 30 and had more than 40 years left to him. Markevitch suppressed his output until near the very end of his conducting career, when he gradually ...
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One of the most prestigious and consequential revivals of unknown composers undertaken by the Marco Polo label in the 1990s was its series of seven discs devoted to Igor Markevitch. Best known as an expert conductor of Russian music, particularly that of Stravinsky, Markevitch abandoned composing after a lengthy illness in 1941-1942 apparently deprived him of his gift; he was only 30 and had more than 40 years left to him. Markevitch suppressed his output until near the very end of his conducting career, when he gradually began to revive it; this positive trend was interrupted by his death. Unlike most "conductors who compose," Markevitch's music does not have the orchestrally centered but emotionally distanced quality seen as typical; it is white hot, passionate, and stylistically radical for its era, a step forward from both Stravinsky and the French neo-classicism common to the time in which Markevitch was most active. The Marco Polo volumes have been unavailable for some time, and happily these are...
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