PERFORMERS:
Soloist – Pekka Kuusisto (violin)
The Musica Viva chamber orchestra (Moscow)
Artistic Director and Conductor: Alexander Rudin
PROGRAMME:
Ottorino Respighi
Trittico botticelliano, P. 151
Fritz Kreisler
Violin Concerto in C Major “in the style of Vivaldi”
Franz Schubert
Overture in C Major “in the Italian style”, D 591
Felix Mendelssohn
Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64
The Musica Viva Moscow chamber orchestra is a universal music ensemble that performs chamber, symphony and opera music. Depending on the programme, the make-up of the performers can change from a baroque ensemble to a symphony orchestra of the times of Beethoven, Mendelssohn or Schumann.
The renowned musician Alexander Rudin is the orchestra’s Artistic Director. Under his direction the ensemble has developed lofty performing skills, assimilated a large and varied repertoire and won international acclaim.
In the orchestra’s performances one may observe lofty ensemble culture combined with the freshness of the musicians’ interpretations. One incredibly important aspect of the orchestra’s activities is its historically informed performances of baroque and early classical music. For many years now the ensemble has run a series of concerts entitled Masterpieces and Premieres at the Moscow Philharmonic, presenting both well-known works and musical rarities. In another series called Silver Classics, Musica Viva introduces the public to the music of European composers from early eras that have so far remained unknown in Russia.
In the Concert Foyer of the Palace on the Yauza River the orchestra recently began another of its unique chamber concert series – Evenings with Alexander Rudin.
Another area of the ensemble’s activities is its performances of oratorios and concert versions of operas. In recent years, in Moscow Alexander Rudin has conducted performances Haydn’s The Creation and The Seasons, Mozart’s Idomeneo, Weber’s Oberon, Schumann’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Juditha triumphans and Degtyarev’s Minin and Pozharsky, or the Liberation of Moscow. Together with conductor Christopher Moulds the orchestra has performed the Russian premieres of Handel’s operas Orlando and Ariodante and the oratorio Hercules.
Musica Viva frequently performs premieres of works by such contemporary composers as Vyacheslav Artyomov, Arvo Pärt, Aulis Sallinen and Valentin Silvestrov among others.
For more than ten years the ensemble has run the Dedication international music festival at the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Armoury of the Moscow Kremlin, which has seen appearances by leading Russian and European performers. Since 2012 there has been a Musica Viva regional festival in Syktyvkar, the capital of the Republic of Komi (Russia).
Musica Viva has succeeded in collaborating with the world’s greatest musicians, among them the conductors Roger Norrington, Christopher Hogwood and Vladimir Jurowski and the soloists András Adorján (flute), Robert Levin (piano) and the singers Joyce DiDonato, Annick Massis and Susan Graham. The Collegium Vocale chorus has performed with the orchestra.
The orchestra also regularly collaborates with Eliso Virsaladze, Denis Matsuev, Nikolai Lugansky, Boris Berezovsky, Alexei Lyubimov, Natalia Gutman, Ivan Monighetti, Hibla Gerzmava, Isabelle Faust and Roel Dieltiens. Together with the Queen Elisabeth Academy of Music (Belgium), Musica Viva organises performances by young prize-winners of European music competitions in Moscow.
Musica Viva is a constant guest at international music festivals. The orchestra has toured to Europe and Asia and frequently performs in towns and cities throughout Russia.
The orchestra has recorded over twenty discs for the labels Russian Season (Russia-France), Olympia, Hyperion (Great Britain), Тudor (Switzerland), Fuga Libera (Belgium) and Melodiya (Russia). The ensemble’s most recent recording project was an album of works by Dvořák (2013), released on the Belgian label Fuga Libera.
Ottorino Respighi wrote his Trittico botticelliano in 1927 when he had been impressed by paintings by Sandro Botticelli, one of the greatest artists of the Renaissance. Of all of the canvases, Respighi settled on three. At first glance, it may appear that there is no connection between them – pastoral images reign in La primavera, mythology in La nascita de Venere and religious themes in L’adorazione dei Magi. Yet all three paintings are imbued with a spirit of pure harmony. The perfection of form, the atmosphere of mystical activity and beauty in its primordial incarnation – these are the factors thanks to which these canvases may be seen as an integral whole, as a kind of aesthetic ideal. Respighi’s musical canvas, too, is imbued with beauty.
The music of all three parts is steeped in a mood of mysterious contemplation. In this work, Respighi proved himself to be a master of colour and sound. The unusually subtle and inventive instrumentation, the abundance of orchestral colours, nuances of shading and ephemeral sounds literally bewitch us.
It is an established fact that the Austrian musician Fritz Kreisler was not just a brilliant violinist, but an incredibly talented composer as well. When performing concerts it was his custom to compile programmes of his own music and adaptations of works by other composers that he liked. Kreisler’s favourite working method was to recreate the music styles of various eras. For example, he initially indicated that the collection entitled Classical Manuscripts for violin and piano featured arrangements of original works by Corelli, Boccherini and other musicians. It was only in 1935 that the composer admitted that it was entirely his own work.
He also works on stylisation in his opuses for solo violin and orchestra. Violin Concerto No 1 in D Major is intense in motifs in the spirit of Paganini, while the no less well-known Violin Concerto in C Major is subtitled “in the style of Vivaldi”. But this concerto is not just a parody of Vivaldi’s style. Kreisler created an unusually vivid and independent work here. It is highly probable, in the atmosphere of musical satiety and the search for new forms that reigned at the turn of the 20th century, that Kreisler’s concerto sounded incredibly fresh.
In 1817 Franz Schubert composed two overtures, giving them the subheading “In the Italian style”. At this time in Vienna Rossini’s operas were being staged with incredible success. It was his impressions of Rossini’s music that led to Schubert seizing his pen. Both overtures – in D Major and C Major – were performed in March 1818, the second of them winning the greatest popularity. It is interesting that it was specifically with overtures and not symphonies that Viennese audiences first became familiar with the composer’s orchestral art.
Composed in 1844, Felix Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor is one of the most famous works in the genre. Even during the composer’s lifetime the concerto had won tremendous popularity and admiration from the public.
For its time, the concerto was an innovative piece. Mendelssohn immediately begins with the principal theme for the violin, which sounds like an incredibly subtle confession of the soul. This could not but amaze the audience who had become used to detailed orchestral introductions. Moreover, the movements of the concerto flow smoothly from one to another, which facilitates greater integrity and unity of mood.
The composer had not miscalculated. Rejecting the canons of the classical concerto in favour of greater freedom, its romanticisation ensured the work intransient glory.
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