Tishchenko: Concerto for violin, piano & string orchestra, Op. 144, etc.

Boris Tishenko's composer's career spans the modest thaw under Khrushchev, the Brezhnev freeze, Gorbachev's perestroika and the great leap into liberal economics under Yeltsin that continues strong under Putin.Though he was Shostakovich's favourite pupil and has been, for 50 years, a major figure in St. Petersburg musical life, his musical work is little known outside specialist circles. A renowned professor of composition,Tishenko is the author of a great variety of works: some touch upon a new age mysticism, but most build on the tradition of Shostakovich.

Tishenko's Cello Concerto, created and recorded by none other than Rostropovich, was actually orchestrated by the master in homage to his young disciple!

Fuga Libera here give us an overview of his current compositions (both works on the CD are post 2000), inspired by a very committed Gennady Rozhdestvensky in these live performances. The celebrated maestro conducts his wife Victoria Postnikova and his son Alexander in a surprising double concerto, and, leading the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, displays the grimacing feast of an epic symphony inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy.