Composer: Fridrich Bruk
Orchestra: Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Māris Kupčs
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC 0645
Release: 2022
Size: 652 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Symphony No. 22 “In the Ocean”
01. I. Death of the Dolphins. Severo
02. II. Sounds of Hope. Pensieroso
Symphony No. 23 “In the Ingrian Mode”
03. I. Soikkola. Sforzo
04. II. Hevaa. Sostenuto
05. III. Serepetta. Risoluto
This third instalment of the recent symphonic output of Fridrich Bruk (born in Ukraine in 1937 but a Finnish resident since 1974) brings two works of astonishing vitality for a composer in his eighties. Both of them have social undercurrents: Symphony No. 22 is driven by ecological concerns about the pollution of the world’s oceans, and No. 23 takes its material from folk-melodies of the Ingrians, a vanishing ethnic group on the Finnish-Russian border. The orchestral writing in both pieces is passionate and wildly inventive, a kaleidoscope of colour and counterpoint, sitting somewhere between Villa-Lobos and Pettersson in its profligate abundance.