Pianist Daniil Trifonov, violinist Sergei Dogadin and cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan took part in the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra’s concerts at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. According to German critics, “the audience enthusiastically welcomed Valery Gergiev’s highly emotional interpretation of Tchaikovsky,” and the performances by the prize-winners “proved a particular highpoint of the marathon.”
For Klassik magazine on the first evening of the marathon, columnist Tobias Pfleger wrote of a veritable “meeting of demons”: “In the conductor’s very stance and in his trembling fingers there were powerful, almost demonic impulses.” “The concert evening was absolutely perfect, all woven into one integral whole” because Valery Gergiev “gambled on the powerful expressive contrasts, confidently taking this incredibly finely harmonised orchestra to the crest of the tenth wave.” Gergiev “made Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique seethe, filling it with tremendous tension and expressive energy.” The critic was stunned at the courage with which Daniil Trifonov performed Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto “without insurance, taking a risk” – “the speed of his fingers appears to be the mere starting point and basis for his primordial style, which stands apart for its demoniacally sparkling indefatigability.”
(http://magazin.klassik.com/konzerte/reviews.cfm?task=review&PID=4530)
In her review entitled An aural landscape of perfect harmony for Das Badische Tagblatt Lotte Thaler focussed on the “transcendental nature of the performance” by cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, who “twittered like a bird” in Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. In Valery Gergiev, Thaler sees a “general – the first among equals” while his “dramatic interpretation and strategy of structuring” the Second and Fourth Symphonies “drove the audience mad with delight.”
Gestures in music was the title of Pfleger’s review on the third evening of the marathon, when the Fifth and Third Symphonies were performed. Klassik magazine noted the orchestra’s “amazing unity of sound and expression” and its “energetic and yet unforced playing.” “The musical characters are very vividly brought to life thanks to the dynamic depiction and the change of tempo… Gergiev’s interpretations are inherently strong and powerful, integrally and convincingly structured.” The “nucleus of the evening” was Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto – “young violinist Sergei Dogadin succeeded in engaging the public with his impeccable technique and rich sound.”
(http://magazin.klassik.com/konzerte/reviews.cfm?task=review&PID=4531 )
In his review of the concerts for Badische Neueste Nachrichten, Nikolaus Schmidt wrote that “Gergiev brings peace to the dance sections that gnaw at the soul, ... he takes the cascades of the brass, envisaged by Tchaikovsky as the theme of fate and the sword of Damocles, to a supreme level of concentration.”
“The breadth of scale and precision are what mark out Valery Gergiev’s conducting,” noted Claus-Dieter Hanauer in Badische Neueste Nachrichten. He stated that “the maestro leads his outstanding ensemble with an autocratic interpretation of the tempo,” exerting a “magnetic influence on the musicians.” “Tchaikovsky’s music is never boring – the autumn festival in Baden-Baden has proved this.”
The October concerts in Baden-Baden were not the final performances there by the Mariinsky Theatre at the Festspielhaus this season. Late December will see the Mariinsky Ballet Company’s traditional winter tour during which German audiences will see Rodion Shchedrin’s Anna Karenina with choreography by Alexei Ratmansky for the first time. Work has already begun on a co-production between the Mariinsky Theatre and the Baden-Baden Festspielhaus on Modest Musorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov to be directed by Graham Vick. The premiere of this opera will open the XX Stars of the White Nights Music Festival on 25 May 2012. The production will be shown in Baden-Baden in July.
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