Children's Album

PERFORMERS:
Vera Pavlova (poet)
Alexei Goribol (piano)

Boys’ Chorus of the Glinka Choral School
Artistic Director and Conductor: Vladimir Begletsov

PROGRAMME:
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Sixteen Songs for Children, Op. 54
1. Granny and Grandson
3. Spring
4. My Little Garden
5. Legend
7. Winter Evening
9. Spring
11. The Little Flower
13. Spring Song
14. Autumn
16. Child’s Song

Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Children’s Album cycle of pieces for piano
Vera Pavlova
Tchaikovsky’s Children’s Album cycle of twenty-four poems

Photographs are poems that dreams bestow.
I don’t miss childhood, scout’s honour.
But does childhood miss me?
Vera Pavlova

Many composers and many poets have turned to the theme of childhood... The beginnings of life, first discoveries, the first impressions that form character, naïve reasons for undisguised delight or bitter sobbing... The older a person is the sadder his smile becomes when his inner world focusses on the past.
The concert programme comprises two cycles by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Sixteen Children’s Songs for chorus and Children’s Album for piano. It is a sad programme. The composer’s memories of his own childhood are inextricably linked with the first tragedy, the first catastrophe in his life – his mother’s death. People do not always think about that. César Cui, with his inherent causticity, established the guilt of Tchaikovsky regarding the lack of correspondence in minor tones with the words “clear-sounding laughter often interrupts the mum” in A Winter Evening. And Children’s Album concludes with the piece At Church, the final fading pulsation of which anticipates the abating finale of the Sixth Symphony...
As a poetic counterpoint to Tchaikovsky’s piano cycle there will be a performance of verse by Vera Pavlova by the author herself.Especially for the programme of the Stars of the White Nights festival the outstanding contemporary poetess has written a new version of her own Children’s Album.
The fact that the wonderful Boys’ Chorus under Vladimir Begletsov is participating is also noteworthy – not just to be heard by children but also with the dream of the sound of children’s voices that this cycle was created.
Alexei Goribol

The Glinka Choral School is the oldest professional academic institution in Russia. Its roots date back to 1479 when the Sovereign’s Chorus of Singing Scribes (founded by Grand Duke Ivan III of Moscow in 1476) opened its Chorus of Young Choristers.
The Young Choristers took part in celebrations to mark the founding of the new capital of the Russian State, and the subsequent history of the ensemble has been forever linked with the history of St Petersburg.
The Imperial Court Choral Cappella produced such outstanding musicians as Dmitry Bortnyansky, Maksym Berezovsky, Stepan Davydov and Vasily Pashkevich.
Over the years, Mikhail Glinka, Alexander Alyabiev, Mily Balakirev, Anatoly Lyadov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Anton Arensky were engaged in the choral cappella’s activities. The traditions of professional music education founded in the 18^th and 19^th centuries are still alive today. It suffices to mention the names of just a few graduates of the Choral School such as Dmitri Kitajenko, Alexander Dmitriev, Vladimir Atlantov, Vladislav Chernushenko, Ravil Martynov, Semyon Bychkov, Andrei Chistyakov, Valery Uspensky, Stanislav Legkov, Valentin Nesterov, AndreyBoreyko, Vladimir Ziva, Аlexander Morozov, Аndrei Petrenko, Vasily Petrenko, Pavel Petrenko, Yakov Dubravin, Sergei Skorokhodov, Pyotr Migunov, Boris Pinkhasovich and Daniil Shtoda...
At different periods the Boys’ Chorus has been directed by such outstanding conductors as Alexander Sveshnikov, Pallady Bogdanov and Fyodor Kozlov. From 1991 to 2007 Vladimir Begletsov was Artistic Director of the Boys’ Chorus; in March 2014 he revived his collaboration with the Boys’ Chorus.
The chorus has appeared in towns and cities throughout Russia and abroad (Great Britain, Germany, Denmark, the USA, France, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Austria, Slovenia, Latvia, Poland, Finland, Spain, Italy, South Korea and China; it has performed at the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Royal Albert Hall in London and the United Nations Organisation in New York. The chorus regularly takes part in international cultural programmes run by the UN and the governments of various nations and St Petersburg.
The Boys’ Chorus took part in concerts marking the opening of the Mariinsky-II and its members have appeared in many opera productions at the Mariinsky Theatre.