Concert by a combined chorus

Concert by a combined chorus comprising:
The Iskra children’s choral studio (St Petersburg)
The Galaktika music and choral studio (St Petersburg)
The Garmonia youth cappella and senior chorus (Gatchina)
The Academic Chorus of the Pskov Regional College of Arts
The St Petersburg TV and Radio Children’s Chorus
The St Petersburg Lyceum of Arts Concert Chorus
The Mariinsky Children’s Chorus
The Mariinsky Male Voice Chorus

The Mariinsky Orchestra
Conductor: Valery Gergiev

PROGRAMME:
Ludwig van Beethoven
Fantasia for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 80
Soloist: Alexei Volodin (piano)

Solo performances by choral ensembles

Beethoven. Fantasia for Piano, Chorus and Orchestra (1808)
A brilliant improviser who staggered his contemporaries with his ability literally “before the very eyes” of huge audiences to create architecturally perfect castles... The “cast” of performers itself is limited: piano, orchestra and chorus. The soloist performs without orchestral accompaniment, as if improvising, “feeling” the path for its subsequent development (Beethoven would not be Beethoven if he had not written this “improvised” introduction anew one year later!). Following the brief dialogue with the orchestra the piano part has an airy winged melody – many audiences recognise it immediately: it is very similar to the famous theme of joy from the finale of the as yet unwritten Ninth Symphony (now, apropos, the anthem of a united Europe). And, if we look at the past, it would appear that its sources come from Beethoven’s early aria Gegenliebe to verse by Bürger. This melody is subjected to different variations – in the separate orchestral sections, in the dialogue with the piano and in the unified sound of the orchestral tutti, until the chorus enters with its own variations to glorify art. It is interesting that the text of this ode was commissioned by Beethoven from the poet Cristoph Kuffner when the music of the Fantasia had already been written. The voices of the chorus, orchestra and piano all come together in the final expansive coda apotheosis – a lofty hymn to the triumph of spirit.
Iosif Raiskin