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Post by jk on Oct 24, 2023 14:24:37 GMT -5
Where to start? Well, there’s this post of mine from January of this year, slightly rewritten for this thread: "This is something that has been preying on my mind for quite a while now.
"A month or two ago, an enlightened presenter at the official Dutch ‘classical' radio station played a piece by Tchaikovsky conducted by the Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, ‘in better times’, as they described it.* Maestro Gergiev had refrained from condemning his country’s 'military exercise' after repeatedly being asked to do so. From then on his presence in the West was no longer welcome. His concerts and conducting duties around the Western world were passed on to others, often with complete changes of programme, and his annual Dutch festival was cancelled.
"On reflection, a far more constructive solution would have been not to ban him and cancel everything, but rather continue as planned. Keep the festival, maybe slightly revised, but keep it -- and invite Gergiev to continue presenting it.
"Everyone seems to have forgotten the most important aspect of all this: dialogue. It's like the extremely short-sighted tactic of destroying statues of controversial historical figures and/or throwing them into the river -- or changing the names of buildings because of the name-givers' controversial past. How on earth can one discuss things (and hopefully move forward) when those things are no longer there?"
* Regrettably this has not happened since. Did the presenter get their knuckles rapped for their troubles?It was seeing the following video, and the glimmer of hope it contains, that finally prompted me to start a thread on this ticklish subject. The great Georgian-born American pianist Alexander Toradze, whom we'd seen in NL in concert with Gergiev in years gone by, died aged 69 in May 2022. The Mariiinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, where we’d been lucky enough to have seen a Prokofiev opera in 2019, mounted a memorial concert for their late colleague that same month. It’s chilling to watch that video, in which Gergiev himself looks emotionally drained, and realize that everyone in it -- Gergiev, the solo pianist Denis Matsuev, even the man playing the triangle -- is now a zero in the West. Recently, an otherwise excellent music show on Dutch TV used footage that just happened to include maestro Gergiev -- and blurred his face. Is that really the way forward? Here is the concert in question. Start at 21:30 if you want to skip the prelims and get straight to the music. I will be playing more stuff conducted by maestro Gergiev in due course. It's high time he was uncancelled. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valery_Gergiev |
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Post by jk on Oct 29, 2023 13:56:20 GMT -5
Here is Alexander Toradze with Gergiev "in better times" (1990, to be exact) with a stunning performance of Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 26 by Sergei Prokofiev, a composer Gergiev places above all others, even his beloved Shostakovich. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._3_(Prokofiev) |
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Post by jk on Nov 2, 2023 5:43:45 GMT -5
My first encounter with the name Gergiev was in 1988 (or maybe late '87), when we'd just acquired our first CD player and were just starting to assemble a CD library. This choice was a no-brainer for me. I'd loved Borodin's Symphony No. 2 in B Minor ever since being converted to classical orchestral music in the early 1960s. The other work on the CD was its predecessor, which I'd never heard before but found equally evocative and so unmistakably Russian. From it, this is the "Andante": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Borodin |
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Post by jk on Nov 3, 2023 5:11:58 GMT -5
Less than two years ago, this is the version of Mikhael Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila overture you were most likely to hear on Dutch classical radio. Today, though, it was the turn of Andre Previn -- norhing wrong with Previn (far from it!!), but it's a sorry sign of the times all the same: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Glinka |
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Post by jk on Nov 5, 2023 9:10:34 GMT -5
The next few posts will address Dutch and world premieres of Russian works conducted by Gergiev during the festival bearing his name. The closing concert of the 2007 Gergiev Festival was on Saturday 15 September. The central work, which was receiving its first Dutch performance that evening under Gergiev's baton, was Boris Tishchenko's Yaroslavna (The Eclipse), Op. 58 (1974), or rather a suite (contents unknown) from that three-act ballet. Act II is performed here by the Leningrad Maly Opera and Ballet Theatre Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Alexander Dmitriev: Note: In the 2010 festival, Gergiev would conduct the Dutch premiere of Tishchenko's Cello Concerto No. 1, Op. 23 (1963), with Tim Hugh as the soloist. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Tishchenko |
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Post by jk on Nov 6, 2023 7:00:07 GMT -5
On 22 September 2001 in that year's Gergiev Festival, the maestro gave the first Dutch performance of excerpts from Shostakovich's Korol' Lir (King Lear), op. 58a (1940). According to the catalogue, the excerpts in question were "Prelude & Cordelia's Ballad", "Ten Songs of the Fool" (see video below), "Blinding of Gloucester" and "March". The 1971 film of that name began life in 1940 as a theatre production, which is where Shostakovich's music comes in: Note: Gergiev himself was stranded in the US in the wake of 9/11 and couldn't conduct the festival's opening concert on 13 September, whose second half consisted of Shostakovich's epic Symphony No. 4 in C Minor. I recall the composer's son Maxim stepped in and conducted maybe the whole concert, I don't remember. The atmosphere was highly charged anyway, but that rendition of the Fourth Symphony, two days after the attack on the Twin Towers, was electric. At the end, Maxim turned to face the audience and held his father's score aloft in a gesture of half triumph, half defiance. A moment never to be forgotten. |
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Post by jk on Nov 7, 2023 17:16:11 GMT -5
I attended the Dutch premiere of Rodion Shchedrin's The Enchanted Wanderer at the 2010 Gergiev Festival but regrettably can't remember much about it. We had been uncharacteristically late in getting tickets that year and for this performance ended up at a ridiculous altitude at the very back of the hall. We were so far from the action that I kept falling asleep! We did better the next year.  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodion_Shchedrin |
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Post by jk on Nov 8, 2023 6:32:56 GMT -5
We heard this long-lost work by Dmitri Shostakovich at the 2001 Gergiev Festival (prophetically subtitled "The War Symphonies"), when it was given its Dutch premiere. According to the work's wiki:
"The Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 was written in 1938 for the newly founded State Jazz Orchestra of Victor Knushevitsky, which gave it its first performance on 28 November of that year in Moscow. The score was lost during World War II, but a piano score of the work was rediscovered in 1999 by Manashir Yakubov. Three movements of the suite were reconstructed and orchestrated by Gerard McBurney, and were premiered at the 2000 Proms in London. The Suite, in its reconstructed form, consists of three movements: 'Scherzo', 'Lullaby' and 'Serenade'."
The description at the start of the video expands on the above:
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Post by jk on Nov 13, 2023 7:03:32 GMT -5
At his 2002 Festival in Rotterdam, maestro Gergiev conducted the world premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina's The Rider on the White Horse for large orchestra and organ: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofia_Gubaidulina |
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Post by jk on Nov 14, 2023 8:39:41 GMT -5
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Post by jk on Nov 15, 2023 4:58:19 GMT -5
The Return of Maxim, Op. 45 is a seven-part suite of music written by Shostakovich in 1936 for the Soviet film of that name. Parts 6 and 7 received their Dutch premiere at the 2001 Gergiev Festival: 1. Prelude 2. Attack Scene 3. Death of the Old Worker 4. Waltz 5. Demonstration 6. Fight on the Barricades 7. Funeral March and Finale en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Return_of_Maxim
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Post by jk on Nov 16, 2023 9:49:44 GMT -5
These two excerpts from reviews refer to this next work's performance at Prom 43 of the 2003 season: "The Ossetian word 'vorzon' means love. Giya Kancheli's alliteration makes for a world-related 50th-birthday present for Gergiev. Sectional and diverse, the opening flutes remind of the Vltava movement from Smetana's Má vlast. This 'idea' returns. In between is a stylistic ragbag -- including 'soap opera' sentimentality and some circus music, a cousin to 'Nellie the Elephant'. A very occasional piece." [ Source] "[Ravel's Alborada del gracioso] was followed by the UK premiere of Georgian composer Giya Kancheli's Warzone, which was commissioned for the 2002 Rotterdam Gergiev Festival and premiered by the conductor. In a letter written to Gergiev, the composer explains the germination of the tile: 'For the title of my dedicatory work I chose the Ossetian word vorzon, which means "love". But when I wrote the word in Latin characters, it suddenly became clear to me that the sound of the word in a certain way corresponded to the English word "warzone" … As we know, it often takes just one thoughtless move to turn love into a "warzone". The way from "warzone" back to love, however, is long and hard…'" [ Source] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giya_Kancheli |
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Post by jk on Nov 17, 2023 4:54:22 GMT -5
Breaking news: "Renowned conductor and artistic director, Valery Gergiev, is set to take the helm of the prestigious Bolshoi Theatre, replacing the outgoing general director, Vladimir Urin. This notable transition in the world of performing arts marks a significant shift in the cultural landscape of Russia. "Gergiev, currently serving as the artistic director and general director of the Mariinsky Theatre, is no stranger to leadership roles in the theatre realm. His tenure at the Mariinsky has been marked by numerous achievements, solidifying his reputation as a maestro in his field. Gergiev’s appointment to the Bolshoi Theatre indicates a new era for the historical institution, promising innovative developments under his stewardship. "While Gergiev's appointment is confirmed, the manner of its announcement remains a topic of speculation. Some suggest that Gergiev may unveil his new position at the upcoming St. Petersburg International Cultural Forum, a significant event in the global cultural calendar. This platform could provide a fitting stage for such a major revelation in the artistic world. "The appointment of Gergiev hints at the possible merger of leadership roles at the Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatres, a move that could reshape the landscape of Russian performing arts. With a unified direction under the baton of Gergiev, the two theatres might witness a collaborative fusion of traditions and innovations. This potential development, if realized, would mark a historic moment in the annals of Russian theatre." (Adapted from bnn.network/arts/maestro-valery-gergiev-to-take-charge-of-bolshoi-theater-replacing-vladimir-urin/)This next work had its Dutch premiere at the 2001 Festival. To quote the YouTube blurb: "Shostakovich orchestrated his Six Romances on Texts of W. Raleigh, R. Burns and W. Shakespeare, Op. 62, twice. The first time [ Op. 62a] was immediately after the composition of the songs in the autumn of 1942 in their original version for bass and piano. This version is scored for large orchestra, with many effects specifically conceived for large orchestra, the trio of stopped trumpets in the fifth song and the massive brass section of the sixth song. The result is a song cycle of near-symphonic dimensions. Indeed, one can easily hear the relationship between the third song and the scherzo of Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony, and at that moment the intimacy of the song cycle is nearly lost. "Nearly thirty years later, however, Shostakovich completely rethought the orchestration of the Romances. In the summer of 1971, he rescored the work for chamber orchestra [as Op. 140, linked below]. Oddly, the re-scoring not only returns to the cycle the intimacy of the piano accompanied version, but it appears to advance the style, and even the language, of Shostakovich's setting. Instead of sounding like a work of the War years, in the chamber orchestra version, the Romances now sound like a late-period Shostakovich work: lean to [the] point of being skeletal, austere to the point of being anguished, and even more death-obsessed than the original." www.boosey.com/cr/music/Dmitri-Shostakovich-Six-Romances-on-Verses-by-Raleigh-Burns-and-Shakespeare/609 |
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Post by jk on Jan 10, 2024 17:25:03 GMT -5
Prompted by a remark made elsewhere by daytona, this is maestro Gergiev conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in Stravinsky's L'Oiseau de feu (the complete ballet, not one of the suites) at the 2000 Salzburg Festival: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Firebird |
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