RUSSIAN RARITIES
LARRY SITSKY (piano)

The works that appear on this 2-CD set are the result of research and performance into a particular era of Russian music. Although the musical distance between the Rubinstein Op.88 Variations and the other later Russian works is often vast, the chronological time is actually fairly short. Rubinstein represented the end of the romantic era in Russian piano music, but an era in which he personally chose to ignore the nationalistic school and the ethos of the Mighty Five group of composers, who wished for a truly patriotic school of composition based on Russian folk music; Rubinstein, instead, used European models for his own work, moreover models who represented the more classical aspects of European art (Mendelssohn is a fine example) rather than the more progressive composers such as Liszt. The musical upheavals in Russian music began less than a decade after Rubinstein's death. Were it not for the eventual Stalinist suppression, the group of composers represented on these CDs could well have led and surpassed their European counterparts in their sheer audacity and exuberance.