Lyatoshinsky Sonata-Ballade, op. 18. Live
Boris Lyatoshinsky (1895-1968) Sonata-Ballade (Sonata No.2), op.18 (1925)
Live from the Recital on December 2, 2023 at the First Baptist Church in Medford, MA, USA.
Boris Lyatoshinsky was the most significant Ukrainian composer of the 20th century, leading a new generation of modern composers away from traditional models. He studied law at Kyiv University and music at the newly founded Kyiv Conservatory with Reinhold Glière, graduating in 1919 with his pioneering first symphony. He took up a teaching post in Kyiv, also working as professor at the Moscow Conservatory in the years before and after World War II. He was initially influenced by the extended tonality of Scriabin, impressionism and symbolism but in the 1920s adopted the modernist atonal style of Central and Western Europe combined with Ukrainian folk melodies. His progressive approach fell foul of the Soviet authorities, especially in the 1940s and, like Prokofieff and Shostakovich, he was denounced as a formalist. In the last decade of his life, after the death of Stalin, he felt free to express himself more fully including in his final Symphony No.5. An influential composition teacher, his pupils included Karayev, Hrabovsky, Karabits and Silvestrov. (from www.boosey.com)