The Bulgarian conductor and composer Emil Tabakov (born 1947) follows in the footsteps of such musicians as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss, being active as both composer and conductor. Like Mahler and Strauss, he prefers to write for large forces and now has nine symphonies to his name. Again like Mahler (more than Strauss, at any rate), Tabakov’s symphonies explore the darker side of the human spirit in epic scores as austere as they are powerful. The second volume of the complete Tabakov editions, world premiere recordings, contains the First Symphony and the Viola Concerto (played by violist Alexander Zemtsov); both works use small motifs to build up compelling symphonic structures, generating expansive, sometimes bleak, post-Shostakovichian landscapes that can explode with violence and energy. © SM/Qobuz