St Petersburg, Concert Hall

Bruckner. Rachmaninoff

Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra
Soloist: Nikolai Lugansky (piano)
Conductor: Nikolaj Znaider

The programme includes:
Anton Bruckner
Symphony № 7 in E Major

Sergei Rachmaninoff
Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 2 C Minor

Anton Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony was a long-awaited triumph for the sixty-year-old composer. Following its premiere under the baton of Arthur Nikisch which took place in Leipzig on 30 December 1884, the fame of the composer who had long remained in the shadows began to grow and spread. The Seventh Symphony is truly one of Bruckner’s finest; the titanic scale of the work is combined with romantic charm and, in places, with mystical illumination. Biographical circumstances also played a role in the success of the symphony. In February 1883 while the composer was working on the slow movement, news came of the death of Wagner, a man Bruckner deeply revered. As a result this movement became a requiem for the maestro. The music features two quotations from Te Deum, which Bruckner was working on at the time: Aeterna fac cum Sanctis and In te, Domine, speravi and the orchestra features a quartet of “Wagnerian” tenor trumpets. When this became known, the army of Wagner’s devotees joined the ranks of the new symphony’s grateful listeners.

Anna Bulycheva

 

… Each time, from the very first bell peal, you sense how Russia stands tall and proud.
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner

In the first years of the new 20th century Sergei Rachmaninoff overcame the sudden spiritual crisis caused by the disaster of his First Symphony. His Second Piano Concerto (1901) heralded the composer’s true “recuperation” and bore witness to the tremendous rise in his creative powers. As a token of gratitude, Rachmaninoff dedicated one of his finest works to his physician Dr Nikolai Vladimirovich Dahl.
A performance of the second part of the concerto was greeted with delight by leading musical figures in Moscow. According to contemporaries, Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev cried during the performance, calling Rachmaninoff’s music brilliant. The concerto’s actual premiere on 27 October 1901 in Moscow was also an absolute triumph. The composer performed the solo, and the orchestra was conducted by Alexander Ilyich Siloti. The monumental nature of its form and the variety and power of the full-sounding piano, “competing” with the colourful orchestral score, give the concerto truly symphonic scale.
Everything in this pearl of Russian classical music – the “bell-like nature”, the broad expanse of lyrical themes, the rush of resilient and volitional rhythms, the mighty waves of culminations and the tranquil light of moments of contemplative peace – all of this is embodied with unusual beauty and it all leads towards the ultimate zenith – the powerful apotheosis, performed in delight and rejoicing.

Iosif Raiskin

Age category 6+

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