Rodion Shchedrin at 88 in Sergei Rachmaninoff's-Romance for six hands

Congratulations to Rodion Shchedrin who celebrated his 88th birthday on December 16th. last week. As a living standard-bearer among the Russian composers who have made a lasting contribution to the history of the Russian piano concerto, Shchedrin was offered honorary membership of the former Rachmaninoff Society - the Rachmaninoff Network's predecessor organization.

This little Rachmaninoff 'encore' recorded at the Verbier Festival two years ago in the company of two other great piano virtuosos is worth seeing...

A note on musical ancestry: Evgeny Kissin relates back to Alexander Siloti via Anna Kantor and Alexander Goldenweiser, Daniil Trifonov relates back to Alexander Siloti via Serge Babayan, Mikhail Pletnev, Yakov Flière & Yevgeni Timakine and Konstantin Igumnov, Rodion Shchedrin relates back to Alexander Siloti via Yakov Flière and Konstantin Igumnov.

Interesting anecdote: Coming from a musical family with a strong religious background and blessed with absolute pitch, Rodion Shchedrin became a member of the choral school founded by Alexander Sveshnikov in late 1944. This in itself was a remarkable feat since the Soviets oppressed Orthodox religion. Moreover, Sveshnikov was smart enough to get a couple of poets to provide secular lyrics to the spiritual choral music. In his autobiography, Shchedrin recalls: 'A couple of times the boys' choir of the Moscow Choral School were even allowed to take part in funeral masses. I remember the funeral office for the great singer Antonina Vassilyevna Nezhdanova, to whom Rachmaninoff dedicated his Vocalise. She was very old and religious, the authorities made a major exception for her funeral.'

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