New Year's Eve Kaleidoscope

A tradition of organising musical evenings in the run-up to Christmas and New Year has a history of many decades. In Europe this tradition was established by maestro Clemens Krauss, who was the first to conduct a New Year’s concert held at one of the world’s major concert halls - the Musikverein in Vienna on 31 December, 1939. Since that time the Vienna New Year’s Concerts have been enjoying a tremendous success with music lovers all over the world: nowadays, they are also available to foreign audiences through annual live broadcasts.

The Primorsky Stage of the Mariinsky Theatre also offers a New Year’s musical gift to its audience. The programme of the New Year’s Kaleidoscope includes popular classical music of various genres belonging to the world treasury of musical literature. This concert is a congratulation, providing one more opportunity to listen to live performance of favourite compositions. The evening playbill is composed of best works of the classical repertoire — splendorous overtures and arias from well-known operas by foreign composers. A special surprise for the listeners will be virtuosic fantasies on famous operatic themes — another musical tradition that was particularly widespread in the 19th century. Sometimes such adaptations became more successful than their original versions, allowing talented performers to demonstrate to the full extent their remarkable mastery and capabilities of their instrument.

No New Year’s concert can do without dance music - Hungarian Dances by Brahms or sparkling numbers of Viennese operetta. One more essential component of a New Year’s musical kaleidoscope is melodies of various nations. The great Russian composer Mikhail Glinka defined melody as “the soul of music”, believing that folk songs revealed the soul of a nation the melody belonged to. The Russian song draws on the history and character of its people, conveying both the Russian’s breadth of nature and their harsh working days. Italian melodies, on the other hand, have absorbed the warmth and sunshine of this southern country: they can warm the hearts of any audience even on the coldest winter day. Russian and Italian songs have long gained the world-wide recognition and are equally loved by both musicians and the audience. Quite often, songs, originally penned by some specific author, but which have over time entered public domain and become known to everybody, are regarded as folk songs. The Russian and foreign vocal gems, romances by Schubert and Tchaikovsky, are as popular as folk melodies and often grace concert programmes.

The colourful musical kaleidoscope will undoubtedly put the audience in a festive frame of mind and will guarantee a wonderful mood on Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Nadezhda Koulygina