PERFORMERS:
Mlada Khudoley (soprano)
Yulia Matochkina (mezzo-soprano)
Mikhail Vekua (tenor)
Vladimir Feliauer (bass)
Mario Brunello (cello)
The Mariinsky Chorus and Orchestra
Principal Chorus Master: Andrei Petrenko
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
“Surprises of the festival”: Aida Garifullina will perform Norma's cavatina (Casta diva) from Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma
PROGRAMME:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik in G Major, KV 525
Leoš Janáček
Glagolitic Mass for soloists, double chorus, organ and orchestra, JW 3/9
Robert Schumann
Cello Concerto in A Minor, Op. 129
Igor Stravinsky
Suite from the ballet The Firebird
In the 20th century Czech music Leoš Janáček is a figure of no less importance than his great 19th century predecessors, Smetana and Dvořák. Among his many operas, vocal and choral cycles, symphony and chamber works, special attention should be paid to pieces inspired by Russian literature including the operas Katya Kabanova (after Alexander Ostrovsky), From the House of the Dead (after Fyodor Dostoyevsky) and the symphonic rhapsody Taras Bulba (after Nikolay Gogol)… During his whole life the composer was dreaming of the great future that awaits the common Slavonic musical culture.
First drafts for the Glagolitic Mass (also known as the Slavonic Mass) were made as early as in 1907. It was not until twenty years later though, that the composer completed the score. The Glagolitic Mass was premiered in Brno on December 5, 1927.
The Glagolitic church practice using the Old Church Slavonic rather than Latin is widespread in some Croatian and Czech Catholic communities. In the music used for religious ceremonies, Slavonic folk motives are mixed with the traditional Gregorian singing. However, the Mass by Janáček was not intended for church service. The composer relieved his music of the gloomy spirit of the monastery. “I was trying to portray the very essence of the nation, not on a religious basis but on a strong moral one that calls God to witness”, Leoš Janáček wrote.
The Glagolitic Mass is full of light and exultation in the face of the Nature and the Man’s mightiness. Janáček used to say that the walls in his temple were loft mountains, the dome was the sky, the candles were high fir-trees with stars at the top, the carpet was grass and green meadows and smoke from incensories was the fragrance of the forest. Three instrumental sections (the mighty Introduction, the vigorous organ passacaglia (Postludium), and the festive Intrada which closes the cycle) enchase five semiorchestral parts of the Mass where the traditional texts of the Catholic mass are used (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei).
Josef Raiskin
In 1850 Robert Schumann became the Director of Music in Dusseldorf. On 24 October he conducted the first subscription concert of the local Musikverein and, the same day, completed the sketchfor his Cello Concerto. The concerto was first performed ten years later – following Schumann’s death. The composer himself named the piece somewhat differently – Konzertstück – thus stressing that this was a one-movement piecefor a virtuoso. In fact, there are three movements that are performed without interruption, revealing the cello’s immense monologue in which the laconic orchestral tutti appear as a series of punctuation marks.
Schumann’s concerto is the quintessence of the romantic image of the instrument. The cello part demands perfect “song” from the instrument with a flawlessly beautiful sound, and it is adorned with elegiac hues. The concerto was orchestrated with a very light hand. The lyricism of Schumann’s music, particularly in the first movement, at times brings to mind certain pages of Tchaikovsky’s scores – for example, the transposition to the second movement conjures up the Letter Scene from the opera Eugene Onegin.
Although Schumann himself was against virtuoso skillfor its own sake, the cello concerto is certainly not devoid of such features: there are passages in the first movement and songful double notes in the second. The cadenza in the concerto’s finale, however, seems to be too modestfor many soloists, and they expand it significantly.
Anna Bulycheva
Diaghilev’s Ballets russes production of The Firebird on 25 June 1910 at the Opéra de Paris proved a sensational success. Created in close co-operation with the choreographer Michel Fokine and the designer Golovin with outstanding ballet dancers, The Firebird was, in the words of one Parisian critic, “a miracle of the enchanting balance between movements, sounds and forms.” Soon after the premiere, Stravinsky composed the Firebird orchestral suite (1911), not just because of the success of the music but also due to his wish to perfect the music in the concert hall. In 1919 a new suite emerged in which the composer abandoned the grandiose full orchestra used in the score for the ballet. Twenty-five years later, in 1945, Stravinsky once again edited his orchestration of the suite. In the 1919 version the suite includes the episodes Introduction, Dance of the Firebird, Round Dances of the Tsarevnas, Kashchei’s Infernal Dance, the Cradle Song and Finale.
| user_name | | Exit |
