Tchaikovsky. Dvořák

PERFORMERS:
Mariinsky Stradivarius Ensemble
Conductor: Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcowici

PROGRAMME:
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Souvenir de Florence in D Minor, Op. 70

Antonín Dvořák
Serenade for string orchestra in E Major, Op. 22

The Mariinsky Stradivarius Ensemble is a group of musicians who perform on the world’s most famous and unique-sounding string instruments in the world. The ensemble was founded on the initiative of Valery Gergiev, Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre. The Mariinsky Stradivarius Ensemble includes the finest instrumentalists and lead soloists in the Mariinsky Orchestra. Popular and well-loved classical works sound completely different when performed by them than at an average concert thanks to the incredibly rich and beautiful timbres of the instruments of Amati, Stradivari, Guarneri, Guadanini and Gofriller.

The string sextet Souvenir de Florence was written by Tchaikovsky in the summer of 1890 on his return from Italy where he had been working on The Queen of Spades with tremendous enthusiasm.
The title does not indicate the creation of “local colour”. This memory concerns not so much the city itself as the time that Tchaikovsky spent there and the frame of mind he was in. One of the musical themes of the sextet, at least, was born during the composer’s sojourn in Florence.
The sextet was conceived much earlier, back in 1887, when Tchaikovsky had given a promise to dedicate a new work to the St Petersburg Society of Chamber Music which was headed by Karl Albrecht. The composer resolved to try his hand in this genre, new to him, halfway between chamber and orchestral music. Although he was already at the height of his fame, he approached this new and complicated task as a student. “You see, this is my first experience of expanding beyond the confines of a quartet,” he wrote modestly to Albrecht. Initially organising a private hearing, Tchaikovsky took a further two years to develop the work before giving his agreement for the official premiere and the work’s publication.
Anna Bulycheva

Antonín Dvořák’s Serenade for Strings, Op. 22, is written as if in one breath – the first sketches were made on 3 May 1875, and by 14 May the score was already complete – the Serenade is attractive because of its liveliness and the direct nature of the composer’s expression as well as its refined brilliance. The genre, inherited from Haydn and Mozart, retains the classical clarity, but taking on the romantic disquiet with Dvořák’s pen: the waltz that the composer introduces (second section) would resound five years later in Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. The intimate nature and the faith typical of chamber music are combined in the Serenade with the full symphonic form – in essence, before us we have a sinfonietta for strings. The finale of the Serenade brings back the themes of its first section and the profound Larghetto, giving the entire work integrity and completeness of form. The Serenade was premiered in Prague on 10 December 1876.
Iosif Raiskin