[boris8826]

I happen to like the music of Nikolay Kapustin, which is a kind of jazz and classical fusion. I think of it as a middle between Rachmaninov’s and Gershwin’s styles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=116QHk9jNGI

Here’s a quote from a paper which summarizes his history:

The first signs of jazz in Russia appeared in the 1920s and 30s, but it was seen as decadent and crude. It was frequently the victim of censorship throughout Kapustin’s formative years. At the end of the 1940s, jazz and jazz musicians began to be persecuted.

By the early 1950s students could be expelled and teachers fired from conservatories for pursuing jazz. The government strove to eradicate the entire jazz field (as well as any other cultural area they found threatening) but an underground jazz scene always managed to not only exist, but thrive in the USSR.

…

Given his somewhat reclusive nature and the historically suppressive society in which he worked, Kapustin’s music was practically unknown outside Moscow until the 2000s. In the 1950s he was known in the area as a pianist, arranger, and composer, but at the time few knew him outside the context of his performing groups at the time. The Soviet State Music Publishing House, Musyka, first published his works in the 1970s but these works rarely circulated beyond the confines of the region. Pianist Nikolai Petrov was an early champion of Kapustin’s music, and it was through Petrov’s concerts that this new music became known in Japan and Germany. In fact, in 1999 the only recordings of Kapustin’s music available in the West were those by Petrov. Kapustin had previously produced vinyl recordings in 1986 and 1989 through Melodiya, but those were only available in the East until Bohème Music reissued them on CD some ten years later. The collapse of the Soviet Union also halted publication of Russian music, so it was through Petrov that Steven Osborne came to know and obtain copies of Kapustin’s musical scores. He recorded two sonatas and thirteen preludes for a Hyperion CD released in 2000.

Referenced paper: https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/uncg/f/Steele_uncg_0154D_11143.pdf

[Harry Binswanger]

Not melodic.

[boris8826]

Here is one etude, that is short and sweet:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDWeGp4UE6M

I find all his music melodic, but in some of them the melody is not immediately obvious as in other of his pieces. I used to listen to his stuff many times in a row before I could fully absorb it.

[Harry Binswanger]

I can believe that it would become more intelligible on repeated listening. The etude is short but not sweet.

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