The concert programme – a homage to Russian culture – consists of compositions different in scope and style, but very bright and important for the history of Russian music.
It is difficult to find a more radiant and joyful piece to start a concert than The Festive Overture by Dmitri Shostakovich. While being the creator of serious sophisticated music, profound dramatic concepts, tragic images and philosophical revelations, Shostakovitch sometimes addressed people in a simple, understandable and clear language. One of the most loved compositions of such kind was The Festive Overture, which was written in 1954 to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the Great October Revolution, and was performed at the ceremonial concert at the Bolshoi Theatre on November 6. However, its premiere had taken place earlier, at the opening of the All-union Agricultural Exhibition and accompanied the night musical fountain performance. The music of the Overture, sparkling with youthful power and ardour, perfectly matched the play of multi-coloured lights in the dazzling fountain jets!
The great Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov served as an inspector of the Admiralty’s navy bands. It was during this period that he wrote his variations on a theme by Glinka for oboe and wind orchestra, which was first performed in Kronstadt in 1878. Using the lyrical romance Why do you cry, young beauty... as a basis, the composer masterfully employed the oboe’s versatility of colourful tones and rich virtuosic capabilities.
In the Concerto No. 1 Shostakovich appears as a figure, absolutely different from the one we come across in the Festive Overture. The First concerto for violin and orchestra was written in a grievous period, when the composer’s works were aggressively criticized and he was subjected to brutal bullying, coming from the very top. Every day and every hour Shostakovich expected his arrest and the horrors that would follow. The Concerto’s four movements (instead of usual three) makes it closer to a symphony and the names of movements have a hidden symbolic meaning. Nocturne in the first movement is a traditionally dreamy genre, which turns into a tragic monologue of a person, who’s trying to comprehend the severity of what is going on both inside and around him. Scherzo (a joke) captivates the listener with the formidable rampancy of evil anti-human diabolical forces. Passacaglia (an ancient genre of mourning songs) is an intense philosophical contemplation. The finale was bitterly described by Shostakovich as “a myth about the public holiday”.
The concerto, which was created in 1948, was only performed seven years later, in 1955. The solo was played by the great violinist David Oistrakh, for whom the concerto had been initially written and to whom it was dedicated.
The evening concludes with one of the most magnificent compositions of the world’s piano repertoire – The Piano Concerto No. 1 by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. From the first and to the last sounds, the listener is absolutely carried away by the huge emotional power, captivating melodic beauty, romantic exaltation and gentle sincerity of this music.
Zoya Gumenyuk
