The symphonies of Tchaikovsky are richly scored and very demanding technically, as well as displaying a remarkable and highly individual amalgam of Russian characteristics and Western symphonic structure. In the case of his first three symphonies, we find many unusual features, a desire on his part for affirmation from his teachers and mentors, and an unease on their part due to what they expected him to compose and what he actually did. There is, of course, the question of an influence of native folk music in his output. About this, he once wrote: “…as far as the Russian element in my music is concerned, i.e. the relationship between the national songs and my melodies and harmonies, this is because I grew up in the backwoods, from earliest childhood saturated with the indescribable beauty of the characteristic traits of Russian folk music.”

Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky arrived at Odessa on the 12th of January 1893. Lev Kupernik, the Head of Odessa Branch of the Russian Imperial Musical Society and Ivan Grekov, entrepreneur of the Odessa City Theatre, invited him to Odessa. The composer agreed to take part in the production of his opera Queen of Spades and conduct two symphonic concerts.

The Sonata for Two Violins is one of Henryk Gorecki’s earliest acknowledged works- its contrasts, instrumental rivalries and sophisticated technique a worthy rounding-off of his formative period. The Third String Quartet with its evocative subtitle ‘… songs are sung’ represents a culmination of Gorecki’s preoccupations with elaborate and emotive melodic shapes and closely intertwined harmonies, its final minutes recalling the beauty and poignancy of the composer’s Third Symphony. The First and Second String Quartets can be heard on Naxos as well: “a recording deserving of the very highest recommendation.”