Much of Karamanov’s music, including the first ten symphonies, dates from his apprenticeship in Khruschev’s Moscow, when his reputation was as a "complicated" pantonal modernist, "with a very sharp ear" and a "bright" intellect. Negative circumstances allied to a pathological reluctance to "write anything down" explain in part why virtually nothing has appeared since the mid-1980s, barring revisions, a couple of film-scores, and the Crimean National Anthem of February 1992. Long forced to imagine his ideas solely in the concert rooms of his mind, Karamanov’s recent claim to be only now conceiving some of his greatest work suggests, however, no lessening of the creative urge. Twenty-four symphonies (1954-83), three ballets (1961-85), seven concertos (piano, violin, trumpet, 1958-68), three string quarters (1953-62), four piano sonatas (1954-61), sundry piano cycles (including nineteen Concert Fugues, 1964), choral settings (1954-74) and songs (to Russian, African and Latin texts, 1963-74) make up the list of his works.
