How did a French-Canadian string quartet from the chilly mining town of Chicoutimi, named after and financially backed by an aluminum-mining company, hit on the idea of recording a group of obscure pieces of Russian chamber music -- music little known even to Russophiles? One doesn't learn the answer from the booklet notes here, which are too heavy on the history of Russian music in general but rather light on this specific repertoire. The basic scene is sketched: the "Vendredis" of the album's title were Friday musicales ...
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How did a French-Canadian string quartet from the chilly mining town of Chicoutimi, named after and financially backed by an aluminum-mining company, hit on the idea of recording a group of obscure pieces of Russian chamber music -- music little known even to Russophiles? One doesn't learn the answer from the booklet notes here, which are too heavy on the history of Russian music in general but rather light on this specific repertoire. The basic scene is sketched: the "Vendredis" of the album's title were Friday musicales organized by the music publisher Mitrofan Petrovich Belaiev (1836-1904), a sort of patron saint of chamber music in St. Petersburg. Several of the composers included (Borodin, Glazunov, Liadov, Rimsky-Korsakov) are familiar from their larger works, but what of Felix Blumenfeld, Nikolai Artciboucheff, and Aleksandr Kopïlov? And what are the pencil sharpener and pencil shavings on the album cover supposed to have to do with the music?Presentational complaints aside, the Quatuor Alcan...
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