This is the third volume in Capriccio’s 18-disc Pancho Vladigerov Edition. After multi-disc sets that introduced his piano concertos and symphonies this one turns to his concertos for stringed instruments. These powerfully unreticent recordings were conducted by Alexander Vladigerov and by the composer (Bulgarian Dances) with the Bulgarian Chamber Orchestra and Bulgarian National Radio Symphony Orchestra. As with the previous two sets, the recordings were produced in the 1970s in Bulgaria. The violin soloists are Georgi Badev, Dina Schneidermann and Emil Karmilarov and two cello works are led by Ventseslav Nikolov.

In Bulgaria, both folk and art music evince an ancient tradition that strikes awe even in some of the great music nations today. The way Pancho Vladigerov incorporated these folk-music themes into his concert pieces shows not only his affinity for them but also suggests that he felt something of a calling to promulgate and champion the folk-traditions of his central European homeland. The most-performed work of Pancho Vladigerov’s is undoubtedly his Bulgarian Rhapsody op.16 “Vardar” from 1922. The most outstanding must be his Seven Symphonic Bulgarian Dances op.23 (1931), with which he might have wanted to create a counterpart to Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, Dvorák’s Slavonic Dances, or Grieg’s Norwegian Dances or similar such popular aural nationalistic postcards.

The music of the Bulgarian composer-conductor Emil Tabakov (b. 1947) explores the darker side of the human spirit in epic scores as austere as they are powerful. His mighty Seventh Symphony, almost an hour in length, is conceived on a massive scale. The monumental opening Allegro moderato passes through islands of calm during its desperate ride through hell, and is followed by a heaven-rattling funeral march and a wild, swirling dance. The finale opens by stoking up the tension in an extensive slow introduction before the music is once again whipped into a maelstrom of dark, driven energy, piling forward to its inexorable conclusion.