Recorded for the first time on one album, this release features Hindemith’s complete works for violin and piano and the rarely recorded “Kleine Sonata” for Viola D’amore and piano. Hindemith’s reputation as a master composer, viola virtuoso and dominant pedagogue — who, being able to play practically every standard instrument (and a few non-standard ones), expected the same from his students — has tended to obscure the fact that he first came to attention not as a composer or violist but as a violinist. Roman Mints has had a lifelong love of the works of Paul Hindemith, which began when he was a young violinist, studying in Moscow in the 1980s. He says “This music, written not just before I was born but closer to the time of my grandparents’ birth, felt completely contemporary, and daringly advanced in its sound — and not just to me, as it turns out: 30 years on, Hindemith is still regarded by concert programmers as too difficult for the wider public. I put Sonata in D on the stand. I was gripped by the first subject, constructed from seconds and sevenths, marked to be played ‘with stony defiance.’ I was never the same again and he became my window into contemporary music.”

Roman Mints (violin)
Alexander Kobrin (piano)

Featuring the mesmerizing and deeply beautiful music of Leonid Desyatnikov, one of today’s most treasured and frequently-performed living Russian composers, and including the world premiere recording of the 1992 work Sketches to Sunset, and the Russian Seasons. Supervised by the composer, the new recording features renowned violinist Roman Mints with the Brno Philharmonic Orchestra and the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Philipp Chizhevsky.

Roman Mints (violin)
Yana Ivanilova (soprano)
Alexey Goribol (piano)
Brno Philharmonic Orchestra
Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra
Philipp Chizhevsky (conductor)

A new recording of Alfred Schnittke’s Works for Violin and Piano, Suite in Old Style for Viola D’Amore, Harpsichord and Percussion is released on Quartz Music on Friday 27 May. Featuring Roman Mints and his friend and colleague Katya Apekisheva, one of Europe’s most renowned pianists, the disc also features Olga Martynova on harpsichord, with Andrey Doynikov and Dmitri Vlassik on percussion.

Roman Mints: violin
Katya Apekisheva: piano
Olga Martynova: harpsichord
Andrey Doynikov: percussion
Dmitri Vlassik: percussion

A selection of chamber works by Elena Langer (b.1974, Moscow), notable for their playful counterpoint and delicate textures. The London-based composer delights in exploring the endless soundworlds of voices and instruments.

‘Landscape With Three People’ dates from 2013, with texts by poet Lee Harwood.

Elena moved to London to complete her degrees first at the Royal College of Music and then at the Royal Academy of Music. She has studied with Julian Anderson, Simon Bainbridge, Gerard McBurney and taken lessons with Sofia Gubaidulina (Centre Acanthes, France), Dmitri Smirnov, Jo Kondo and Jonathan Harvey. In 2002 and 2003 Elena was the first ever composer-in-residence at the Almeida Theatre, London.

She has received commissions and performances from organisations such as The Royal Opera House’s ROH2, Zurich Opera, Carnegie Hall, The Britten and Strauss Festival in Aldeburgh, Park Lane Group, St. Petersburg’s Music Spring, Chamber Music Series “XX/XXI” of the Bayerische Staatsoper (Germany). This recording project was generously funded by Blyth Valley Chamber Music, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Trust and a large number of individuals. The new CD will be launched in parallel with the first public performances in Cardiff of the composer’s ‘Figaro Gets A Divorce’, a new opera for Welsh National Opera under David Pountney.

A new release by the multi-award winning Russian violinist Roman Mints. Each piece on this recording has been chosen by the artist for very personal reasons. It includes the notable premiere of Dobrinka Tabakova’s Spinning a Yarn, for violin and Russian Hurdy-Gurdy (kolesnaya lira) written especially by the composer for Roman Mints.

The recording premieres the use of Spatial Orchestration, a concept created by Mints to give the listener a unique understanding of each track. To find the right sound for each piece of music, Roman has used different place settings for the microphone, as well as moving his instrument around the studio, allowing his personal interpretation to enhance the final experience.

ECM New Series presents the first full album devoted to the music of Dobrinka Tabakova, a composer born in Bulgaria in 1980 but raised from a young age in London. In Tabakova’s music – richly melodic, texturally sensuous, often emotionally radiant – there resides the new and the familiar, or rather the familiar within the new, and vice versa; there are the spirits of East and West coursing through the pieces, usually hand in hand; and just as the composer’s technical virtuosity is apparent, she possesses a desire, and a gift, for direct communication that can be heard in virtually every measure. The recording features Tabakova’s Concerto for Cello & Strings and the Rameau-channeling Suite in Old Style for viola and chamber orchestra, as well as three chamber works: the string trio Insight, the string septet Such Different Paths and a trio for violin, accordion and double-bass, Frozen River Flows. The performers include star violinist Janine Jansen and several of Tabakova’s former conservatory colleagues: violinist Roman Mints, violist-conductor Max Rysanov and cellist Kristina Blaumane, principal with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Kristina Blaumane: cello
Maxim Rysanov: viola, conductor
Janine Jansen, Roman Mints, Julia-Maria Kretz: violin
Amihai Grosz: viola
Torleif Thedéen, Boris Andrianov: cello
Raimondas Sviackevičius: accordion
Vaiva Eidukaitytė-Storastienė: harpsichord
Donatas Bagurskas, Stacey Watton: double bass
Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra

ECM New Series 2239

Leonid Desyatnikov

also featuring:
Alexei Goribol, piano
Anton Dressler, clarinet
Anna Panina, violin
Fedor Lednev, conductor
Pavel Stepin, double bass
Serj Poltavski, viola
Evgeny Rumyantsev, cello
Petr Kondrashin, cello
Dmitri Sharov, trombone
Yuri Kolosov, trombone
Kirill Koloskov, trombone
Dmitri Vlassik, timpani
Asya Sorshneva, violin

The innovative and provocative first album by the recently performed partnership of Paul Dunmall and Roman Mints. These two acclaimed creators and performers of new music have come together to produce an album that explores experimental and beautiful sound worlds.

Paul Dunmall, saxophone
Roman Mints, violin

Roman Mints, violin
with:
Maxim Rysanov, viola
Kristine Blaumane, cello
New Prague Sinfonia
West Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra
Mikel Toms, conductor

Works for Violin and Electronics

A remarkable album of works written specially for the celebrated Russian violinist Roman Mints. Technical virtuosity and state-of-the-art electronic manipulation combine to produce a startling, atmospheric and highly original CD.

20th Century Works for Violin and Piano

Roman Mints, violin
Elena Chudinovich, piano