Credits:

Ugorskaja, Dina

Description:

Leonard Slatkin, one of America's foremost conductors, is also a prolific and highly regarded writer and composer. This album is a musical portrait of the Slatkin family, featuring Slatkin's own compositions as well as works by his son and historical sources from his parents: 1971's The Raven, a 25-minute epic with narration; 2014's Endgames, a brilliant work featuring soloist Virtuosity; and 2015's Kinner, an elegant work dedicated to the memory of his parents. The 2015 work Kinner is an elegy dedicated to the memory of his parents. Slatkin's father, Felix, and mother, Eleanor, were scheduled to perform Brahms' Double Concerto together for the first time as soloists in 1963, but Felix died suddenly of a heart attack the night before the concert and they were unable to perform together. The piece takes its theme from the second movement of the Double Concerto, with a solitary monologue by a cello placed offstage near the end of the piece, and in this recording, Slatkin's brother Fredric plays the cello that belonged to their mother. Track 8, "In Fields," is by his son Daniel, born in 1994. Tracks 9 and 10 are also recordings with his father Felix Slatkin and mother Eleanor Aller as soloists, respectively. Note that the conductor on the Haydn that Eleanor plays is Korngold, who was active in the United States at the time. The album ends with a tribute to Carmen's work by Felix.This is a piece that reveals the magnificent genealogy of a musical family that has been in existence for generations. Naxos Japan