Aleksandr Lokshin: Nocturne

Phillip Sear plays a short nocturne from a set of pieces (apparently!) for children from 1960-70 by the Russian composer Aleksandr Lokshin (1920-87). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Aleksandr Lokshin ( Александр Лазаревич Локшин 1920-87) was born in the Altai region of Siberia. He studied first in Novossibirsk, and later at the Moscow Conservatory (where Myaskovsky was one of his teachers). Although his first diploma work (with words by Baudelaire) was rejected by the Communist censors, he nevertheless joined the Composers&Union. After war service he retook his diploma with a more acceptable work, and taught at the Conservatory for a few years. However he was expelled on account of his ideologically unsound musical tastes, and thereafter made his living writing music for movies and stage works. He is best known for his eleven symphonies, but (as far as I know) wrote little for piano. This piece seems very technically and musically sophisticated for children to play - but I guess that he was writing for older children who had been through the rigorous Soviet piano pedagogical system. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------- Played by Phillip Sear