The second and last record coming from my former neighbour is a romantic piano concerto by Chopin. The pianist is the for me totally unknown Yevgeny Mogilevsky. It turns out he was the third Sovjet pianist to win the Belgium Queen Elisabeth Concours, an outstanding feat in its own right.
Rozhdestvensky is better known, and has passed in the articles before. I promised then I would write a bit more about him. He deserves that. Rozhdestvensky was a giant in his own right, with lots of major works dedicated to him, musicians and composers inspired by him to write and perform music.
Born in 1931 in a musical family where music was the bread and butter of life, Gennady took the name of his mother to avoid any semblance of nepotism. He quickly established himself in major modern works of the time: Shostakovich, Schnittke, Prokovief, and later Gubaidulina. His conducting style is described as supple, but with attention to the structural guidelines of the piece.
Personally, I usually notice his recordings have a clarity and eye for detail that is unprecedented. He also used to work with one of the best Russian cellists that ever lived: Rostropovich.