Firma Melodiya presents a boxed set dedicated to the 75th anniversary of one of the outstanding contemporary Russian conductors Dmitri Kitayenko.
“Today he can be undoubtedly considered one of the five or six best conductors of the world. This phenomenon is out of the common,” Herbert von Karajan wrote about Kitayenko after the young Soviet conductor gave a brilliant performance at the international competition in Vienna receiving the second prize and winning the hearts of the Viennese audience and media. Evgeny Svetlanov also greeted his younger colleague on the pages of the Soviet press as a talented and promising conductor.
A graduate of the Leningrad Conservatory who also completed a postgraduate course of the Moscow Conservatory and a training course at the Vienna Academy of Music, Dmitri
Kitayenko had a brilliant start to his conducting career. From 1976 to 1990, he headed the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic Society replacing preceded by Kirill Kondrashin. Under his leadership the celebrated orchestra substantially expanded its repertoire and actively toured.
During the recent decades, the conductor worked with the orchestras of Western Europe, Japan, South Korea and the United States and regularly recorded.
This 6 CD set includes recording made by Dmitri Kitayenko in studio and at concert in 1975 to 1987 with the orchestra of the Moscow Philharmonic Society and the USSR State Academic Symphony Orchestra. The chamber pieces by Corelli, Grieg, Respighi and Richard Strauss, Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10, oratorical works by Donizetti, Brahms, Puccini and Rachmaninoff, and Tchaikovsky’s Fantasia for piano and orchestra (solo by Igor Zhukov) included in the set showcase the conductor’s stylistic diversity and highest mastery. These recording will be of interest to those who remembers Kitayenko’s performances of the past years and to a new generation of listeners as well.
