Vassil Kazandjiev - Symphony No. 7 (dedicated to Angel and Guerguan Tsenov)
Sofia Philharmonic
Guerguan Tsenov, conductor
Live performance, November 1, 2018
Bulgaria Hall, Sofia Bulgaria
Vassil Kazandjiev (1934) was one of the five innovators (together with Konstantin Iliev, Lazar Nikolov, Georgi Tutev, and Ivan Spassov) of Bulgarian contemporary music, and as such was blacklisted by the communist authorities in Bulgaria for many years. A child prodigy, at the age of 13, he became the private composition student of Iliev. Later, he studied composition and orchestration at the State Academy in Sofia with Pancho Vladigerov and conducting with Vladi Simeonov. His first notable composition was the Divertimento for small orchestra (1957). He was one of the first Bulgarian composers who wrote dodecaphonic compositions (First Piano Sonata, 1959; First String Quartet, 1966). In 1965, Kazandjiev attended the Warsaw Autumn Festival. This event marked a major change in his compositional style, especially with the introduction of aleatoric elements and graphic notation, as in Complexi sonori for strings (1965). This same work was highly acclaimed following a performance given by the Sofia Soloists Chamber Ensemble under the composer’s direction at the 1967 Zagreb Biennial Festival. Aspects of Bulgarian history and culture have also played an increasingly important role in his compositional processes. This is evident in his preoccupation with timbral and coloristic effects, as well as in his choice of subject matter. From the 1970s he has experimented with blending elements from Bulgarian orthodox and folk music - modal formulas, free improvisation (measureless folksongs), diaphonia, and other vocal and instrumental effects - with aleatoric devices. Some of his best-known works were composed during this period - The Living Icons (Живите икони,1970), Pictures from Bulgaria (Картини от България, 1970), Apokalipsis (1976), Festive Music (Празнична музика,1972), Illuminations (1979), and Triumph of the Bells (Триумф на камбаните, 1972).
Since his very early youth, Kazandjiev was deeply influenced by Iliev’s and Dobrin Petkov’s conducting styles and this later led to an equally impressive career as a conductor. In 1957, he became conductor at the Sofia Opera. In 1962, he founded the Sofia Soloists Chamber Ensemble with which he achieved international acclaim, touring Europe, Asia, and the USA. In 1963 he was appointed teacher of score reading at the State Academy and later became professor of conducting. From 1979 to 1993, he was chief conductor of the Sofia National Radio Symphony Orchestra. In nearly 40 years teaching at the National Academy of Music in Sofia (1963-2002), he established his own conducting school, which went on to produce musicians working on several continents.
14 сен 2021
