UNSEALED

Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky (1904 - 1987) Suite from Colas Breugnon, Op. 24a Suite: The Comedians, Op. 26 Suite: Romeo and Juliet The son of a mathematician, Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky was born in St Petersburg in 1904 and was intended by his father for some similar vocation to his own. Kabalevsky, however, showed considerable artistic promise, whether as pianist, poet or painter. After the Revolution he moved with his family to Moscow, where he continued his general education, while studying painting and, at the Scriabin Musical Institute, the piano. It was his interest in this last and his obvious proficiency that led him to reject the course that his father had proposed at the Engels Sodo-Economic Science Institute in 1922 and he turned instead to the piano, teaching, playing, like Shostakovich, in cinemas and now beginning to compose. In 1925 he entered the Moscow Conservatory, resolved to further his increasing interest in pedagogical music. Here he studied first with the leading theorist Georgy Catoire and then with Prokofiev's friend and mentor, the composer Myaskovsky. At the same time he became increasingly known for his writing on musical subjects, notably in the Association of Contemporary Music Journal, although he was careful not to distance himself from the much more musically conservative and politically orientated Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians. While the former espoused progressive forms of music that might, nevertheless, fit the principles of Socialist Realism, the latter favored a simpler and more popular form of music that the people might understand.

In 1932 Kabalevsky became involved in the Moscow organization and activities of the now established Union of Soviet Composers that replaced the earlier groupings, although, over the years, the leadership, like that of the Association of Proletarian Musicians, lacked musical credibility, whatever their political correctness. He worked for the state music publishing house and taught composition at the Moscow Conservatory, while continuing to write a large quantity of music. Although, like others of his generation, he supported the general principles of the Revolution it was not until 1940 that he became a Communist Party member, continuing during the Great Patriotic War to write music likely to instil patriotism and help the war effort. Problems arose for many Soviet composers in 1948. Already in 1936 Shostakovich had been condemned for his apparently socialist opera A Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, stigmatized by Stalin as chaos instead of music. 1948 brought official condemnation of formalism, involving Shostakovich and Prokofiev byname at the head of the list of those proscribed. Kabalevsky succeeded in having his own name removed from the list and replaced by that of another composer, although he might well have been to some extent implicated by his earlier association with the Organization Committee of the Composers' Union, the Org Komitet.

Colas Breugnon
01 Overture 4:25
02 The People's Feast 5:58
03 The People's Calamity 5:56
04 The People's Insurrection 4:13

The Comedians
05 Prologue 0:58
06 Galop 1:28
07 March 1:27
08 Waltz 1:32
09 Pantomime 1:48
10 Intermezzo 0:52
11 Little Lyrical Scene 1:13
12 Gavotte 1:49
13 Scherzo 1:38
14 Epilogue 2:22

Romeo And Juliet
15 Introduction 3:14
16 Morning In Verona 1:53
17 Preparation For The Ball 1:41
18 Procession Of The Guests 3:27
19 Quick Dance 1:26
20 Lyrical Dance 5:12
21 In The Cell Of Friar Laurence 3:11
22 Tarantella 3:25
23 Romeo And Juliet 2:58
24 Death And Reconciliation 6:46