Dmitri Nalasov’s concert program provides a perfect opportunity to get an insight into contemporary vocal music. Nikolai A. Morozov (born in 1956) is a celebrated theatre composer.
Performances featuring his music are on in theatres of Moscow, St Petersburg and many other cities. An Incident based on A.P. Chekhov’s story A Quarrel With Wife is, according to the composer, a semi-theatrical sketch, requiring from a singer both vocal and acting skills, and sound effects imitate real life noises, including the sound of dropping a piano lid.
Morozov created the vocal cycle Stargazers’ Dreams when he was still a student. Verses by Spanish poets, written at different times, are organically connected by contemplations about eternal existential issues. And the mono-opera A Toast based on Arkady Averchenko’s story speaks well for the composer’s sense of humour.
Forgive me by Valery A. Gavrilin (1939–1999) is a poignant, sincere romance, which sets hearts aflutter in a manner of romantic heroes of the beginning of the XIX century.
Sergei M. Slonimsky is one of the most interesting and singular modern composers, an author of works in all genres. Serious, complex music of his romances to Lermontov’s poems reflects philosophical mood of the poet’s lyrics.
Georgy V. Sviridov (1915–1998) is a giant of Russian culture; his works are organically rooted in Russian national folklore and classical tradition. Holy Mother in the City is the music that takes one’s breath away, so touchingly pure and tragically doomed the image is. And the bells, the bells...
Zoya Gumenyuk
