Igor Markevitch (1912-1983) was a conductor and composer, born in Kyiv and later active across Europe. He became one of the most striking conducting figures of the mid-twentieth century.

In the Pristine catalogue he appears at the Edinburgh Festival in Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich, Mussorgsky and Stravinsky, with Galina Vishnevskaya and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Markevitch’s conducting was incisive, rhythmically alert and often electrifying, with a modernist sharpness that suited Russian and twentieth-century repertory especially well.

His page is essential. Markevitch conducts as though the score has edges, corners and sparks still flying from the cut metal.