|
By Olga Fyodorova
…The year 1942. The War is at its height and the Nazis are tightening the
noose around the besieged Leningrad which stubbornly refuses to give up.
Subsisting on a tiny piece of bread issued them for the whole day, the
citizens still try to help those who are even less fortunate. Professional
and amateur musicians keep coming to hospitals to entertain the recuperating
defenders of Russia’s northern capital.
In one of the hospital rooms, 10-year-old Volodya Fedoseyev was giving
daily concerts playing the hand organ, reciting poems and singing songs.
One day, a wounded General called him up and said:
“You’ve got talent, boy, you really have! Something tells me that when
you grow up, you’ll be an artist and a good one too! Keep up the good job,
sonny!”
And keep up he did all his life, first finishing a music college as a hand
organ player, then moving on to enter the Gnessins Music Institute in Moscow
where he first tried his hand as a conductor.
The wealth of sounds and timbre went straight to the head of the budding
maestro who dreamed of someday steering a real-to-God professional orchestra
and posing in front of the mirror whenever he could preparing for the job.
Vladimir worked hard studying the potential of each instrument and learning
the orchestra repertoire. In 1959 Vladimir Fedoseyev, then only 27, was
put at the head of the Radio Russian Folk Orchestra.
Until then folk orchestras focused mainly on playing traditional folk music
and folk-tinged pieces written by modern-day composers. Vladimir
Fedoseyev went further than that including in the repertoire appropriately-arranged
classical tunes many of which he thought sounded even better when played
on balalaikas, domras and hand organs…
The orchestra was going from strength to strength, its democratic repertoire
and noble performance appealing to listeners, just like the artistic charm
and cultural finesse of its conductor…
The country’s leading pianists, violinists and singers were now flocking
in to partner on stage with Fedoseyev’s up and coming orchestra and his
profound sense of ensemble playing wasn’t lost on the Bolshoi’s big-leaguers
either, especially the formidable tenor Sergei Lemeshev who shared his
final stage appearances with the Radio Folk Orchestra…
By the late 1960s the orchestra was already something like a national icon,
but the maestro, now a certified symphony conductor, already had his sights
firmly on opera and symphony performances...
Burning to break free from the limitations imposed by the folk format,
Fedoseyev even thought about leaving Moscow and settling down somewhere
in the province just to be able to try his hand as a symphony and opera
conductor.
His friends helped arrange several symphony tours of the country and Fedoseyev
was hooked forever…
In 1974 the Radio Big Symphony Orchestra was looking for a conductor to
fill the gaping hope left by the departure of the celebrated Gennady Rozhdestvensky
whose musical priorities deviated from those of the big shots at the Radio
Committee. None of the country’s leading conductors was willing to
fill the void, but when Vladimir Fedoseyev was invited to take up the job,
he gladly accepted the offer…
Most of the orchestra members immediately quit in protest and, forced to
start literally from scratch, Fedoseyev hired a new lineup and got down
to work. His workaholic attitude and selfless devotion appealed to many
but it wasn’t until several years later that the new orchestra
finally obtained the sound and performing quality Fedoseyev was looking
for…
The listeners too were increasingly warming up to the new-look orchestra
which was now packing halls around the country – a tell-tale improvement
from the early days when they often played in half empty venues.
Regular appearances on radio and television and excellent TV presentations
by Fedoseyev’s wife – popular music commentator Olga Dobrokhotova, were
also adding momentum to the orchestra’s quickly growing popularity.
Russia’s leading composers were now working closely with Fedoseyev’s orchestra,
among them the living classic Georgy Sviridov who entrusted to them the
first performance of many of his new works.
When, in the mid-1990s the Russian intellectuals, caught in the turmoil
of a raging economic crisis, found themselves unable to afford going to
concerts, Vladimir Fedoseyev launched a series of season concerts where
tickets never cost more than just a bread loaf and whose refinement was
absolutely mind boggling! The tickets were sold out in a matter of just
a few days!
In the following year the orchestra added another series of season concerts
and has since been offering about a dozen top-notch symphony performances
each year.
Improving all the time, the orchestra was now a welcome fixture of many
national and international music festivals winning glowing reviews for
their masterful interpretations of Russian music, primarily by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
The Japanese hailed Vladimir Fedoseyev as the best performer of symphonies
written by their much-loved Russian classic…
Always on the rise, Fedoseyev was now invited to work with the world’s
leading orchestras and operas. In the late 1990 he settled down in Europe
doubling as the artistic director of the Vienna symphony orchestra while
retaining his conductorship of his beloved Big Symphony Orchestra whose
signature, free flowing musicality was so immediately recognized everywhere…
In 1999 Vladimir Fedoseyev and his Big Symphony orchestra marked the 25th
anniversary of their mutually-rewarding partnership with a grand series
of concerts crowned by a larger-than-life extravaganza which gathered thousands
of fans in the Conservatory Big Hall in Moscow and millions more watching
the whole thing on TV…
Vladimir Fedoseyev who is turning 70 later in the year 2002, is at the
height of his talent and popularity. True to the advice once given him
by the wounded General in the wartime hospital, he has spent all his life
learning, trying hard and blazing new trails, proving once again that,
coupled with hard work and patience, Talent will always find its way…
|