Stravinsky. Mozart

Igor Stravinsky. Les Noces (1914-1923)
Les Noces, with the second title "Russian choreographic scenes with singing and music" is a unique mix of genres, to a great extent laying out the individual features of Stravinsky’s theatre. The composer admitted that he got the idea for the work from reading collections of "two guardians of the Russian language and soul" – Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasiev and Pyotr Vasilievich Kireyevsky: "I wanted to retain something along the lines of a pagan ceremony, at my own discretion using ritualistic elements of the ages taken from Russian folk customs". This musical and theatrical opus has a distinctly conventional, playful character. the action unfolds simultaneously on various levels and during four stages of a ritual (the un-plaiting of the braids, the parental blessing of the young couple, the ransom of the bride, the wedding banquet), portraying all the different views of the events taking place. After a lengthy search, an unusual solution for the instrumental role was found: the "super-personal" meaning of what is depicted calls out to augment the ensemble of four grand pianos and the large percussion section.
Nadezhda Kulygina

Many of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s arias, songs, sonatas and concerti were written for women singers, women violinists and women pianists. Among such pieces is his Piano Concerto No 9 (K. 271) in E Flat Major, composed for a certain Mademoiselle Jeunehomme. Who this young woman actually was is a mystery, though in the 20^th century the pianist was claimed to be Victoire Jenamy, daughter of the great French choreographer Jean-Georges Noverre. At the age of twenty, Mozart composed a lofty and chivalrous work in which the piano reigns triumphant. Against the laws of tradition, in the first movement the soloist immediately enters a dialogue with the orchestra and, as it develops, the piano takes on the role of a"motor" that sets the tempo and pulse of the music. The second movement in minor key is complex and serious: the main theme is expounded in the form of a canon of violins, while the pianist quickly introduces a completely new melody. During the final rondo of the piano we suddenly hear a new theme – a minuet that shatters the tempo and rhythm. But despite the young composer’s incredible wilfulness the Ninth Concerto is a very refined, indeed almost chamber-like piece of music in which the piano is frequently left alone with the violins at some times and with the oboes at others.
Anna Bulycheva

Without Serge Koussevitzky the 20^th century would not have enjoyed a good half of the masterpieces it saw created. a double bass player, conductor and publisher, he knew exactly what to commission from which genius and when. It thus came to pass that Igor Stravinsky composed his Symphony of Psalms in 1930 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The composer started work on it at Christmas and very quickly he came to the conclusion that the basis of his new work should come from the Psalter. The verse was selected so that each subsequent section is a continuation of the preceding one in terms the idea being conveyed – the three movements of the symphony are performed without a break. The symphony uses the Latin text of the psalms, although the composer initially worked with the Russian language version and this is reflected in the musical intonations of the work. In the music one can hear symphonies and the regularity of bell-ringing. The Symphony of Psalms exerted a major influence on the development of religious music in the 20th century. It had an even stronger influence on symphonies composed between the 1930s and the 1950s. As in Stravinsky’s earlier work, these almost always feature a finale that concludes with a slow coda. When writing the Symphony of Psalms the composer himself was quite possibly inspired by the coda from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony.
Anna Bulycheva