Olga Viktorova’s cantata Mother Russia for soloists, children’s chorus and symphony orchestra was written with the aim of presenting Russian folk music in all its genres and geographic variety.
“At the basis of my cantata lie songs from the Smolensk Region, Transbaikalia and the south of Russia. These songs were recorded by folklorist Feodosy Rubtsov by ear, and so it may be said that they had already passed through an initial ‘check’ by a composer.
“The idea of creating the cantata developed gradually. It all began while I was still a student at the St Petersburg Conservatoire, when I spent a great deal of time in the folkloric laboratory of Anatoly Mekhnetsov. Almost all the holidays, both summer and winter, we spent ‘in the field’ – we sought out, listened to and recorded songs by female folk song-writers.
“This relationship with ‘mother Russia’ to a great degree has had an effect on all my subsequent work.
“One direct impulse for producing this work was meeting Andrei Petrenko, a wonderful musician and Chorus Master of the Mariinsky Theatre. We met at the Yekaterinburg premiere of my work Sancta Maria for chorus and cello.
“When the work finished we felt a mutual understanding, and Petrenko suggested that I write a work for children’s chorus and orchestra.
“Then I turned to Rubtsov’s anthology. I was immediately gripped by the variety of intonations and melodies in the material – the purity and freshness of the Smolensk refrains, the sources of the music of eastern Slavs that had been preserved in remarkable purity, the Cossack lyricism of Transbaikalia and the vibrant colours of Russia’s south that were a record of the utter power and beauty of pagan dance.”
Olga Viktorova