Soloist: Maxim Rysanov (viola)
Conductor: Alexander Sladkovsky
PROGRAMME:
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Capriccio espagnol, Op. 34
Alfred Schnittke
Viola Concerto
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Schéhérazade, symphonic suite, Op. 35
The idea of founding a symphony orchestra in Tatarstan came from Nazib Zhiganov, Chairman of the Union of Composers of Tatarstan and rector of the Kazan State Conservatoire. On his initiative, the conductor Natan Rakhlin was invited to Kazan to form an orchestra.
On 10 April 1967 at the Tatar Opera and Ballet Theatre the Symphony Orchestra of the State Tukai Philharmonic of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic gave its first performance under the baton of Natan Rakhlin. The first thirteen years proved to be some of the most exciting in the orchestra’s history: the ensemble undertook successful tours to Moscow as well as other major towns and cities in the USSR, while in Tatarstan its popularity knew no limits.
Starting in 1979, after Natan Rakhlin’s death Renat Salavatov, Sergei Kalagin, Ravil Martynov and Imant Kotsinsh all worked with the orchestra. In 1985 Fuat Mansurov was invited to take the post of the orchestra’s Artistic Director and Principal Conductor, and went on to work with the orchestra for twenty-five years. In 2010, following Fuat Mansurov’s death, Alexander Sladkovsky became the orchestra’s new Artistic Director and Principal Conductor. With his appointment the ensemble embarked on a new stage of its history.
International music festivals organised by the State Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan – Rakhlin Seasons, White Lilac, Kazan Autumn, Concordia, Denis Matsuev and Friends and Creative Discovery – are all vivid events in the nation’s cultural life. The orchestra runs the project The Property of the Republic for talented pupils at music schools and students of the conservatoire, the educational project Music Lessons with an Orchestra for Kazan school pupils and the project Healing through Music for severely ill children. The ensemble has been a winner of the competition Philanthropist of the Year (2011 and 2013), founded by the President of Tatarstan.
The State Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan is one of the finest ensembles in Russia. The ensemble has appeared in concerts to great acclaim in Moscow, Perm, Orenburg, Irkutsk, Sochi and Tyumen and at the Crescendo, Stars on Baikal, Denis Matsuev’s Orenburg Seasons, The Cherry Orchard and Hibla Gerzmava Invites festivals among others. In April 2014 the orchestra took part in a concert at UNESCO headquarters in Paris at a ceremony where Denis Matsuev was made a Goodwill Ambassador.
In 2012 the orchestra recorded an anthology of music by Tatar composers and the album Brightening up on the Sony Music and RCA Red Seal labels. Since 2013 the State Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan has been an artist of Sony Music Entertainment Russia. The orchestra’s concerts have been recorded and broadcast by the TV companies Mezzo and Medici.tv.
Over the years the orchestra has collaborated with countless internationally acclaimed performers, among them Galina Vishnevskaya, Irina Arkhipova, Olga Borodina, Lyubov Kazarnovskaya, Hibla Gerzmava, Sumi Jo, Simone Kermes, Albina Shagimuratova, Tatiana Serjan, Anna Bonitatibus, Dinara Alieva, Plácido Domingo, Roberto Alagna, Zurab Sotkilava, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Vasily Gerello, Ildar Abdrazakov, Vladimir Spivakov, Viktor Tretyakov, Igor Oistrakh, Vadim Repin, Sergei Krylov, Gidon Kremer, Alena Baeva, Yuri Bashmet, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniil Shafran, David Geringas, Sergei Roldugin, Mikhail Pletnev, Nikolai Petrov, Vladimir Krainev, Vladimir Viardo, Lazar Berman, Denis Matsuev, Boris Berezovsky Barry Douglas, Nikolai Lugansky, Alexander Toradze, Ekaterina Mechetina, Ramzi Yassa, Ksenia Bashmet, Igor Butman, Sergei Nakariakov and Alexei Ogrintchouk.
The ensemble has also collaborated with the Yurlov Russian State Academic Choir, the State Russian Sveshnikov Chorus, the Masters of Choral Singing chorus directed by Lev Kontorovich, the Chorus of the St Petersburg State Capella and the Vladimir Minin Moscow Chamber Chorus.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic suite Schéhérazade (1888) is a triumph of Russian programme symphony music. The composer gave a foreword to the score with a programme based on The Tales of the Arabian Nights. Initially each movement has a subtitle: 1. The Sea and Sindbad’s Ship; 2. The Kalendar Prince; 3. The Young Prince and the Princess; 4. Festival at Baghdad. The Sea. The Ship Breaks against a Cliff Surmounted by a Bronze Horseman.
Later these titles were dropped by the composer due to the “undesirable search for too-defined a programme”. The composer focussed on the specific expressiveness of the music itself and did not want to compromise the audience’s imagination.
The musical themes of the introduction, along with other motifs, flow through all of the suite’s movements, giving it integrity and perfect balance. However, according to Rimsky-Korsakov himself, “with different lighting and expressing different moods, one and the same motifs and themes always match the differing images, plots and tableaux.”
The first performance of Schéhérazade took place in St Petersburg on 22 October 1888 and was conducted by the composer.
On Evil’s cushion poised, His Majesty,
Satan Thrice-Great, lulls our charmed soul...
Charles Baudelaire. Les Fleurs du mal
By 1985 Alfred Schnittke had composed such acclaimed works as Concerto Grosso No 1 (1977) and the cantata The History of Dr Johann Faustus (1983).
The image of Faust was particularly close to the composer, though he interpreted it in his own manner. Schnittke himself stated he did not base his work on the magnificent opus by Goethe – who idolises his protagonist – instead turning to a folk book published by Johann Georg Spies in 1587 two centuries before Goethe. It was in the source “folk” Faust, Schnittke said, that “we see the embodiment of the duplicity of the human and the devilish – the devilish uppermost... In essence Faust is like a mirror reflecting the changes in humanity in recent centuries.”
The spirit of Faust runs throughout the Viola Concerto No 1 (1985). The composer dedicated the concerto to Yuri Bashmet, immortalising the name of the first performer of the work on the pages of the score with the anagram “B A eS CH E”. The solo viola with its noble and masculine timbre, lacking any sentimentality whatsoever, is balanced by the orchestra which is devoid of the dazzling timbre of the violins.
The initial recitative of the viola and the bleak and colourless flavour of the orchestra immediately immerse the audience in an atmosphere of tragedy. The solo part abounds in developed monologues and brief rejoinders. Here we have a hint of the composer’s mischievous alter ego.
The concerto is a kind of dialogue: the inquisitive intonations of the viola, which “speaks in a human voice”, are contrasted with the cold mirages of the orchestral background and bleak chorales or, the reverse, the all-consuming and destructive whirlwind tutti.
The desire to depict the dialectics between Good and Evil may be observed both in each of the three movements of the concerto and in the overall cycle.
At the core of the second movement of the concerto – the evil and cruel perpetuum mobile – Schnittke includes two genre episodes: a grotesque waltz and a romantic Adagio. The unusual “love” duet of the solo viola and double bass in high register should apparently bring the listener to attention with its obvious parody character and extreme emotionality: here is Evil in its deceptively alluring “fine” clothes! But... “there is such a lack of beauty in contemporary art, in contemporary music, that even falsely conceived beauty takes on the role of true beauty” (Valentina Kholodova). Thus this short episode (less than three minutes) won the concerto its unusual popularity. This music is frequently used on radio and television as a symbol of love, of striving for happiness...
The finale, which sees a return of the mood of the first movement, very quickly becomes a funereal chorale and procession. The cemetery-like bells underscore the inevitability of tragedy. Slowly the final intonations of the viola fade away and the light dims...
Glinka’s Spanish overtures laid the basis to an engaging chapter in the history of Russian classical music. “Russian Spain” came to life in masterpieces by Dargomyzhsky and Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky and Glazunov, Prokofiev and Shostakovich...
Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol (1887) emerged from sketches for a fantasia concertante for violin and orchestra based on Spanish folk themes. The composer’s initial idea developed and expanded far beyond the realms of a fantasia or suite founded on folkloric motifs. Before us we have a dazzling orchestral concerto – one of the first such examples in Russian music. In the five movements of the Capriccio we can imagine Spain in song and dance (Rimsky-Korsakov borrowed genuine folk themes from José Inzenga’s Collection of Folk Songs and Dances).
Thanks to the varicoloured yet transparent orchestration, colourfulness and richness of flavour (in particular the castanets included in the percussion section), the score of Capriccio espagnol is a veritable encyclopaedia of orchestral mastery.
The first performance of Capriccio espagnol took place in St Petersburg on 5 December 1887 under the baton of the composer.
Iosif Raiskin
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