Violin Concertos Nos 1 & 2

'This knock-out Hyperion release … the First Violin Concerto is a major achievement … Ibragimova delivers her solo part with communicative passion. You can imagine Ilan Volkov listening to her in the sessions, shaping the whipcrack response from the BBC Scottish players as the music evolves: there's a marvellous sense of spontaneity in both pieces … a terrific disc' (International Record Review)

'Soloist Alina Ibragimova delivers a highly persuasive interpretation, her meltingly lovely tone especially effective in encapsulating the mystery and romance of the central slow movement. Equally compelling is the incisive and imaginative orchestral accompaniment from Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, captured here in outstandingly clear-recorded sound' (BBC Music Magazine)

'Both concertos are beautifully played by Alina Ibragimova, whose slightly wiry, deceptively fragile sound seems ideal for this music's ambiguities, with Volkov and his orchestra providing the perfect foil' (The Guardian)

'Both concertos are given superb, telling performances here by Alina Ibragimova and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Ilan Volkov, on a disc that is valuable both historically and musically' (Daily Telegraph)

'The First Violin Concerto reveals a composer deeply influenced by the expressionism of early Schoenberg, Scriabin and Berg, but also one who has found his own voice. The violinist Alina Ibragimova gives an impassioned performance with the ripe-sounding BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Volkov. She and they are equally committed in the Second Concerto, composed in 1936, but unperformed until this very recording - an unequivocally Romantic work' (The Times)

'Ibragimova plays like a dream, and Volkov and the BBC Scottish SO accompany superbly throughout. Simon Eadon's sound is first-rate. Anyone interested in rare 20th century repertoire need not hesitate' (Gramophone)

As late as 1982 Soviet musicologists claiming any significance for Nikolay Roslavets were vigorously suppressed. Only in 1990 was his unmarked grave identified. How many scores were lost when his flat was ransacked just after his death in 1944? The ruthless vengeance of a reactionary proletariat-branding Roslavets, himself born of peasant stock and a fervent 1917 revolutionary, a mere pedlar of bourgeois 'art for art's sake'-has fortunately now given way to a gradual recognition of the very real significance of this 'Russian Schoenberg'. Hyperion has played an important part in the composer's contemporary rehabilitation, with a benchmark recording of some orchestral works performed by Ilan Volkov and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. The same performers are joined here by the brilliant young violinist Alina Ibragimova.

Roslavets's Violin Concerto No 1 was thought to exist only in piano reduction form until 1989 when the full score was unearthed in the archives of the State Music Publishers in Moscow. It is an ambitious work, laid out on a large scale. Roslavets's mastery of a leaner symphonic idiom, virtuosic and elegant, is immediately apparent. It ranks as one of the most important Russian works of its era.

Violin Concerto No 2 was completed in 1936, and was written shortly after the composer's remarkable Chamber Symphony of 1934-5 (recorded on Hyperion CDA67484). Thus it belongs to the period following Roslavets's return to Moscow from Uzbekistan, when he seems to have been trying to re-establish his reputation as a composer of substantial works, but after the notorious Pravda denunciations of Shostakovich and musical modernism in January 1936 he probably felt it stood little chance of performance. Since then it has remained in total obscurity until very recently, and these notes were heard for the first time in Glasgow's City Hall in January 2008-the performance on the present disc is in fact the world premiere.