TARIVERDIEV, MIKAEL - Seventeen Moments Of Spring (Sealed) (CD)

Seventeen Moments of Spring, a 1972 Soviet twelve part television series. The series tells the story of a Soviet spy (portrayed by the actor Vyacheslav Tikhonov) operating undercover in Nazi Germany as military officer Max Otto von Stierlitz. Stierlitz is on a covert mission to disrupt secret negotiations aimed at forging a pact between Germany and the Western Allies. He is sometimes referred to as `the Soviet James Bond'. On broadcast, Seventeen Moments was immediately immensely popular with an estimated audience of between 50 and 80 million viewers for each episode. Crime rates dropped significantly during the broadcasts, city streets were empty and power stations had to increase production to cope with a surge in the demand for electricity for TV sets. It became the most successful Soviet espionage thriller ever made. It was rebroadcast annually in the Soviet Union and throughout the Warsaw Pact nations, and is still regularly shown in Russia where it remains one of the most popular television series of all time. Without any doubt, the score by Mikael Tariverdiev contributed to this huge success and its popularity catapulted him to national fame. `Somewhere Far Away' and "Moments', remain some of the best-known and well-loved cinematic songs of the era. The main theme and his piano underscore to that famous caf? scene where Stierlitz and his wife meet-but-don't-meet captured the haunted longings and romantic poignancy of a generation of Soviet citizens who had suffered their own forced separations, displacements, silences and losses. The score presented here follows the narrative arc of the series' story. It has been re-mastered from transfers made from original tapes in the Tariverdiev apartment in Moscow. The CD version contains three additional tracks never before released - even in Russia - including the much-loved Waltz for Gaby.