St Petersburg, Concert Hall

Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists chamber ensemble

Featuring Konstantin Khabensky

Yuri Bashmet (biography)


PROGRAMME:
Franz Schubert – Gustav Mahler
Der Tod und das Mädchen
(Albert Camu’s Caligula, Narrator – Konstantin Khabensky)

Camille Saint-Saëns
Carnaval des animaux (Narrator – Konstantin Khabensky)


Franz Schubert composed his String Quartet No 14 in D Minor in March 1824 following a serious illness. It was entitled Der Tod und das Mädchen as the second section comprises variations on the theme of death from Schubert’s laconic song dialogue to lyrics by Matthias Claudius (February 1817). It is assumed that at the premiere of the quartet in 1826 the composer probably performed the viola as was his customary practice.
The work is one of three quartets Schubert composed in minor key. It stands apart for its paradoxical combination of insistent and absolutely classical motif development and the sudden appearance of romantic episodes during which time seems to stand still. The first section opens with a theme of fate that imbues the Allegro right up to the very last bars and returns once again in the quartet’s frenzied finale.
It was probably the symphonic scale of the composition as well as the unusual density of its texture which gave Gustav Mahler the idea of producing an arrangement for string orchestra in 1896.


Camille Saint-Saëns’ Le Carnaval des animaux is a trifling piece that over time has caught up with his symphonies and almost all of his operas in terms of popularity. It was composed in Austria in February 1886 during a holiday following a demanding concert tour and was meant to be performed in private homes on the last day of Shrovetide (known as Carnaval in France). Two pianos dominate in the unusual orchestral formation. For them alone the composer wrote the pieces Hémiones (animaux véloces) and Kangourous. Le Coucou au fond des bois is also for the two pianos, but “in the wings” an unseen clarinet quietly provides the cuckoo. In Pianistes the piano ensemble is supported by the approving voices of the strings, in Volière there is the typical solo flute and Aquarium features the rarity that is the glass harmonica (normally performed using bells). In the Finale all of the participants of the Carnaval come together.
The suite of fourteen pieces was written in just a few days. This speed was possible as Saint-Saëns turned to music by other composers. For the piece Poules et coqs the composer borrowed the “clucking” from Rameau’s La Poule and added his own theme of a cockerel crowing (in general Le Carnaval des animaux has a prototype in the French suites of Rameau and Couperin which are often just as extravagant). For Tortues he used a theme from the impetuous Galop infernal from Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers which is slowed down to the extent that it literally “crawls” over all the string instruments. In L'Éléphant the double-bass performs the theme of the ethereal waltz borrowed from Berlioz’ Danse des sylphes.
The idea of how to convey the sound of a donkey braying (Personnages à longues oreilles) has clear parallels with Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In terms of its minimalism, arguably Personnages surpasses miniature pieces by Anton von Webern. The piece Fossiles opens with a theme from Saint-Saëns’ own Danse macabre, there is a continuation of early French songs and in the finale there is a detectable fragment of Il barbiere di Siviglia by Rossini (whom Saint-Saëns knew personally but considered him as an ancient “relic”). Fossiles is the only piece that the composer accompanied with a drawing which depicts a dinosaur’s skeleton.
This “fun” collage (that’s the best way to describe) would have been an honour for any postmodernist composer, but Saint-Saëns thought differently. It was only Le Cygne for cello and two pianos that he allowed to be printed and performed publicly; all other parts were jealously kept out of public hands, preserving his reputation as a serious musician.
Anna Bulycheva


The Moscow Soloists was founded by the violist and conductor Yuri Bashmet in 1986. In 1992 the ensemble was entirely renewed and its musicians comprised the best graduates and post-graduates of the Moscow Conservatoire. The ensemble made its debut on 19 May 1992 at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire. Two days later the orchestra made its first appearance outside Russia at the Salle Pleyel in Paris.
The ensemble has given concerts at Carnegie Hall in New York, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Barbican in London, the Tivoli in Copenhagen, the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Sydney Opera House, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome and the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire.
On planes and trains the Moscow Soloists have spent around five thousand hours, travelling roughly one million, four hundred and seventy-five thousand kilometres, or thirty-five times round the Earth’s equator.
The ensemble takes part in the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Mstislav Rostropovich Festival in Evian, concerts held under the aegis of Sony-Classical at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the festivals Weeks of Music in Tours, Elba, Musical Island of Europe, December Evenings, A Dedication to Oleg Kagan, Prestige de la Musique at the Salle Pleyel, the Festival of World Chamber Orchestras in Omsk and festivals in Ravenna, Montreux, Bath, Sydney, Qabala and Moscow.
From 2008–2014 the ensemble took part in the Sochi Winter Festival of which Yuri Bashmet is the Artistic Director. The& Moscow Soloists also take part in Yuri Bashmet’s festivals in Yaroslavl, Khabarovsk, Rostov on Don, Minsk, the Seychelles and the Yuri Bashmet Moscow Violists’ Competition. In January 2013 the ensemble appeared at a festival commemorating Yuri Bashmet’s sixtieth birthday.
The ensemble’s concerts have on numerous occasions been broadcast and recorded by the world’s great radio companies, among them the BBC, Bavarian Radio, Radio France and NHK. The ensemble has collaborated with Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Natalia Gutman, Viktor Tretiakov, Gidon Kremer, Maxim Vengerov, Vadim Repin, Sarah Chang, ShlomoMintz, Barbara Hendricks, James Galway, Lynn Harrell, Mario Brunello, Thomas Quasthoff, Anna Netrebko, Olga Borodina, Jesse Norman and Yefim Bronfman.
The Moscow Soloists ’ repertoire includes over three hundred and fifty masterpieces of world music and rarely performed works ranging from Bach and Mozart to Schnittke and Denisov as well as music by Kancheli and Gubaidulina among other contemporary composers.
In 2008 the Moscow Soloists received a Grammy award for their recording of music by Stravinsky and Prokofiev. In 1994, 2006 and 2009 the ensemble was nominated for Grammy awards.
In 2007 to mark fifteen years since its establishment, the ensemble undertook an unprecedented tour of Russia, giving forty-two concerts in thirty-nine cities. In Ufa the musicians gave their thousandth concert, while in Severomorsk they gave a concert on the anti-submarine cruiser Peter the Great. The ensemble undertook an even more extensive tour for its twentieth anniversary featuring more than eighty concerts in thirty countries.
In the autumn of 2009 the Moscow Soloists completed a tour of Russia during which the musicians performed on unique instruments crafted by Antonio Stradivarius from the Russian State Collection of Prized Musical Instruments. In the 2013–2014 season the musicians undertook their first-ever tour of all of Europe’s capital cities.
The ensemble’s participation in the cultural programme of the Sochi Olympic Games in 2014 was to prove a major event.


General Partner of the Ensemble

Partner of the Ensemble

Age category 6+

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