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MMD > Archives > June 2020 > 2020.06.08 > 03Prev  Next


Sonata No. 1 by P. Khvostchinsky
By Julian Dyer

These rolls have been recut by Tom Jansen, and indeed these are what
you hear in Max Lakeman's video on YouTube.  Probably the only way to
get them!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lpfY8w-CA 

In Charles Davis Smith's Welte catalog he describes how rolls numbered
from 1937 to 2171 were recorded in Russia, the recording device first
being transported to Moscow and then on to St. Petersburg.  So this
does agree with the idea that the Khvostchinsky rolls were recorded
in St. Petersburg.

It is more than likely the material was created for sale at Welte's
Russian dealers, and most of these rolls seem to be quite scarce
in western collections.  Smith could not locate details for many of
the issues.  This is a pity because a lot of it is very interesting
material from forgotten pianists.

Russian transliterations vary by the target language and age which
makes searches rather difficult.  I think modern usage would identify
the composer/pianist as Pyotr Abramovich Khvoshchinsky.

There is a page about the composer at http://traditio.wiki/  which
describes him as a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov and Lyadov at the
St. Petersburg Conservatory, later a soldier imprisoned after the
Revolution who died of typhus in prison in 1920.  Various others of
his pieces were also published by P. Jurgenson and can be found
online at the Rochester library page identified earlier.

The Russian page uses Cyrillic script so the link is rather long:

https://traditio.wiki/%D0%9F%D1%91%D1%82%D1%80_%D0%90%D0%B1%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87_%D0%A5%D0%B2%D0%BE%D1%89%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9 

Khvoshchinsky was described as a "Skryabinist" in "Russians on Russian
Music: An Anthology 1880-1917" (ed. Stuart Campbell, Cambridge 2003),
where the author couldn't find out more about him.  And he is one of
the many names in the Ira Gershwin lyric, "Tschaikowsky (and Other
Russians)," well known in Danny Kaye's recording.

Julian Dyer
Wokingham, Berkshire, UK


(Message sent Mon 8 Jun 2020, 21:10:46 GMT, from time zone GMT+0100.)

Key Words in Subject:  1, Khvostchinsky, No, P, Sonata

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