Name: Variations on a Theme of Mozart by Semion Aksionov by John H. Schneiderman
Duration: 4 min 54 s
Description: Variations on a Theme of Mozart by Semion Aksionov performed by John Schneiderman on a Russian guitar.

Etude Four by Andrey Sychra performed by John Schneiderman on a Russian guitar.

Etude Four by Andrey Sychra

KPFK radio broadcast, Howard Larman's Hootenanny featuring the DemiJohns:
John Schneiderman, banjo & John Corzine, guitar
1971 (age 13)

DemiJohns On KPFK 1971

The Czar's Guitars (John Schneiderman & Oleg Timofeyev) perform Kamarinskaya by Mikhail Glinka, arranged for quart guitar & Russian guitar by Vladimir Morkov, on 19th-c. Russian guitars.

Kamarinskaya by Mikhail Glinka

The Czar's Guitars (John Schneiderman & Oleg Timofeyev) perform Potpourri of Russian Folk Songs I by Vladimir Morkov for quart guitar & Russian guitar on 19th-century Russian guitars.


Potpourri of Russian Folk Songs I by Vladimir Morkov

John Schneiderman performs Souvenir No. 4, Le Zuyderzee, by Napoleon Coste on a 19th-c. 7-string guitar.

Le Zuyderzee: Ballade, Op.20 by Napoleon Coste

Ensemble Galanterie (John Schneiderman, baroque lute; Jeffrey Cohan, baroque flute; William Skeen, baroque cello) perform the Allegro from Adam Falckenhagen's Concerto for Lute & Flute in D Major.

Adam Falckenhagen Allegro from Concerto for Lute & Flute in D Major

Allegro from Sonata in A Major for Two Lutes by Wolff Jacob Lauffensteiner.

Lauffensteiner Allegro from Sonata in A Major for Two Lutes

The guitar duet version of the well known Tarantelle by Johann Kaspar Mertz.  Performed on period terz guitar and guitar.

Tarantelle by Johann Kaspar Mertz

Variations on a Theme of Mozart by Semion Aksionov performed by John Schneiderman on a Russian guitar.

Variations on a Theme of Mozart by Semion Aksionov

A special praise should be reserved for Morkov’s arrangement of Carnival of Venice.  This published composition does not specify the author, but I grew up listening to Gidon Kremer’s rendition and thinking of it as a setting by Heinrich Ernst (1812-1865), a Moravian–Jewish violinist.  However, once you start trying to disentangle the knot of whether Ernst wrote and subsequently published these variations himself or whether he overheard his grand idol Nicola Paganini practicing or performing it first –– to hell with that, you would rather focus on what Morkov did with these variations.  And indeed Morkov did a lot:  the technique to perform these acrobatic pieces on any sort of guitar needs to be stunning.  Is it even possible that someone at one of his soirees could play such things?

Variations on a Theme of Mozart by Semion Aksionov

John H. Schneiderman

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