By Olga Fyodorova
...On November 21, 1937 there was a special, premiere-like, atmosphere
reigning inside the brightly lit columned hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic
Society... The philharmonic orchestra was playing Dmitry Shostakovich’s
newly written Fifth Symphony. The 31-year-old composer was the darling
of the city’s music-lovers who had already got used to hearing all his
major works played right here conducted by the very best kapellmeister
one could think of. Just imagine their surprise at seeing the name
of a little known Yevgeny Mravinsky steering the philharmonic orchestra
through Shostakovich’s latest work...
“Mravinsky... Never heard this name before... Is his from Moscow?”
“No, he’s the nephew of the Mariinsky Theater’s famous diva, Yevgeniya
Mravina. He literally grew up there and that’s where he’s been doing lot
of conducting now...”
“He’s got to be real good conducting at the Mariinsky... How old
is he?”
“Must be about 30 or something... And a real heartthrob too, tall,
upright with a majestic head, long arms and chiseled fingers... His movements
all so refined and laconic... He looks like an ascetic but his music sounds
so lush and penetrating...”
“I still wonder just how I dared to take up such a complicated thing
without a moment’s hesitation,” Mravinsky admitted 30 years later. “If
it happened now I would certainly wrack my brains making lots of second
guessing and I’m not sure I would take it up... I had my whole reputation
at stake and, even more importantly, also that of a new composition no
one had ever heard in public before... My only excuse was my young age,
that I was unaware of the problems that awaited me down the road, nor the
responsibility I was taking...”
There was one more problem Mravinsky could as well think about. By
the fall of 1937, Dmitry Shostakovich had already fallen out of favor,
still hurting from the official thrashing he got in January 1936, when
the Soviet authorities unleashed a vicious campaign of scathing criticism
against him in the press. Therefore the importance of his new symphony’s
success or failure, was hard to exaggerate especially now that Stalin’s
purges were ominously gaining steam...
The Fifth Symphony came off to a very good start and from day one
became part and parcel of Mravinsky’s repertoire. He conducted it more
than a hundred times in Leningrad, Moscow and just about everywhere else
in and out of this country. His interpretation was touted as the best around
and the memorable premiere of the Fifth Symphony was the beginning of a
very close friendship between Mravinsky and Shostakovich, a mutual affection
that lasted for nearly half a century...
Yevgeny Mravinsky was born on June 4, 1903 into the family of dedicated
music-lovers. He took his first piano lessons at the age of 6, exactly
the time when he paid his first visit to the Mariinsky Theater watching
the marvelous ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” by Pyotr Tchaikovsky...
Who could imagine then that, years later, “The Sleeping Beauty” would
become Mravinsky’s premiere at this very same theater!
As a young man Yevgeny Mravinsky was very much into natural sciences
and dreamed about an academic career. After finishing school he entered
the University spending his time off working as an extra at the Mariinsky.
That was when he became seriously interested in music and started preparing
to enter the Petrograd Conservatory.
He entered the composers’ department on the strength of several,
pretty mature, compositions, only to realize later on that he would make
a better conductor than he would a composer...
First trying his hand as a ballet conductor, Mravinsky, now
a nearly 30-year-old man, followed up his initial success with “The Sleeping
Beauty” by equally successful productions of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake”
and “The Nutcracker.” That done, he moved on to try his luck in opera.
The young conductor’s progress was not lost on the philharmonic managers
who started occasionally inviting him to perform in concert. Tchaikovsky
being his number one composer, Mravinsky gave his music a completely different
sound. The excessive sentimentality was gone, the melodies acquired additional
strength and the whole compositions became more streamlined and melodic...
In the fall of 1938 Yevgeny Mravinsky took part in the first national
competition of conductors. The program was excessively complicated and
even though the participants’ lineup was the best one could possibly think
of, few young hopefuls managed to make it to the finals. By round three
Mravinsky, who was among the leaders from the very start, was already seen
as a clear victor...
The winner was immediately showered with prestigious contracts. He
took his time, but an invitation to take up the Leningrad Philharmonic
Orchestra sent the mind of the 25-year-old maestro reeling! He had already
played with them before and knew how difficult it would be for a novice
to work with the country’s best orchestra whose members certainly knew
their worth and were definitely not easy to get along with.
Initially met with much-anticipated skepticism, Mravinsky eventually
endeared himself to the players on the strength of his talent and workaholic
ways. And also his iron will and power of conviction...
Having a huge symphony repertoire to master in a matter of just a
few short months, Mravinsky worked almost round the clock... His friends
feared this mammoth pressure could result in a moral and physical breakdown,
but Mravinsky did just fine and, before very long, he was sailing
freely in the boundless sea of orchestral music...
* * *
Appointed artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonic orchestra
in 1938, Mravinsky was bubbling with new ideas, but all these high hopes
were dashed by the Nazi attack on this country on June 22, 1941…
The enemy was fast moving eastward and before long the Germans had
come almost flush against the city’s western suburbs. The city authorities
were in a rush to get plants, factories, theater companies and museums
out of town. The philharmonic orchestra was sent east to Siberia settling
down in Novisibirsk.
The government of Leningrad, which had never had its own orchestra
before, suggested that Mravinsky try his hand playing easier music, but
hating to see the high musical standards going even a bit down, Mravinsky
started with the Fifth Symphony by Dmitry Shostakovich…
The high-pitched emotionality of Shostakovich’s music surprisingly
coincided with the way people felt those trying days… Small wonder that
the Fifth Symphony was such a resounding success…
On June 9, 1942 Yevgeny Mravinsky unveiled Shostakovich’s Seventh,
Leningrad, Symphony. Shostakovich, who, until then, had only heard his
new work presented by another conductor, was stunned by Mravinsky’s rendition.
“His attention to detail and artistry are absolutely unbelievable!”
raved the author. “In the long months they’ve been out of town, the orchestra
has not only retained its best qualities, but managed to mightily
add to what they already had!”
The Seventh Symphony was a phenomenal success played four times in
a single week!
During their three-year stint in Siberia Mravinsky and his orchestra
gave a whopping 538 concerts attended by more than 400,000 people. To top
it all, they also played more than 200 radio concerts!
The orchestra also did a great job bringing classical music to Siberian
concertgoers. After their final departure, the city set up a philharmonic
society and a symphony orchestra all their own.
In September 1944 Mravinsky and his orchestra returned to Leningrad
where the local critics were quick to appreciate their radically improved
performance…
In February 1946 the orchestra left for its first-ever foreign tour
playing nine sold-out concerts in Finland and receiving rave reviews in
the local press:
“Concerts like these are a rare treat one can wait years to enjoy,”
gasped the very impressed Uusi Suomi newspaper. “You don’t see a
conductor and orchestra performing in such amazing unison every day, the
way it happens when Mravinsky steers his orchestra…”
More foreign tours followed but cases when Mravinsky conducted an
“alien” orchestra were extremely few and far between. He and his Leningrad
Symphony were now a single whole, small wonder that he felt a bit ill at
ease working with someone else…
Mravinsky’s repertoire was equally staggering. Perfectly at ease
with just about everything ever written in the realm of symphony music,
his interpretations of Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Mozart, Berlioz and Bruckner
were absolutely out of this world. Neither was he averse to occasionally
throwing in bits of Wagner’s operas and music by contemporary composers.
And still, he was especially partial to new works by his good friend Dmitry
Shostakovich…
On December 17 and 18 of 1953, Yevgeny Mravinsky unveiled Shostakovich’s
newly written 10th Symphony. A profoundly tragic composition, the 10th
Symphony was designed to lay bare the terrible, ugly and blood-spattered
face of Stalinism, so deeply rooted in Russian history and still alive
even though Stalin is not…
Yevgeny Mravinsky was one of the handful of close friends to whom
Shostakovich disclosed the underlying idea of his new work. But even without
it, Mravinsky’s unbelievable intuition would still help him
get the hidden message across to the listeners, the horrible atmosphere
of denunciations, purges, executions of innocent people, the atmosphere
of all-devouring fear and energy-sapping stupor…
The performance of the 10th Symphony was impeccable both where it
comes to the quality of instrumental sound and seamless perfection of ensemble
playing. The orchestra played with clockwork precision a welcome quality
resulting from hours upon hours of hard work.
Mravinsky always showed up to rehearsals 30 minutes ahead of time
knowing by heart every single note they were going to play. And still,
he took his time going over the score again and again double-checking his
notes. Then, suddenly, he raised his arms pronouncing in a crisp voice
of a professional announcer, the name of the composition to play and woe
betide him who was not ready to give quick response to the maestro’s gesture!
Small wonder that the musicians had also grown used to come a bit
earlier and, all set, wait for the rehearsal to begin…
An efficiency and discipline stickler, Mravinsky always knew exactly
what he was up to. He was never easy on his musicians, but even less easy
on himself…
Despite all his grand status of a world-renowned master, Mravinsky
was terribly nervous each time he was going out on stage – a perfectly
human quality he never ever tried to hide. But the moment he walked
out on stage, his step decisive and firm, the fear was gone, at least that’s
what everyone thought…
Despite his stern-faced abrasiveness, Mravinsky was in reality, a
very warm, sincere and vulnerable person, the music giving best credit
to the genuine beauty of his soul…
Yevgeny Mravinsky led the Leningrad Philharmonic for a whole fifty
years. During his ebbing years, the gray-haired “patriarch” conducted sitting
on a high chair, but no one ever saw this as a sign of frailty or old-age
weakness. Mravinsky remained the towering giant he always was, admired
and even idolized by everyone, above all his orchestra, which eagerly picked
up his every gesture… Actually he could as well just sit there and look
into their eyes to have everything done…
Because Yevgeny Mravinsky spent most of his life behind Stalin’s
Iron Curtain, he was somewhat less known in Europe and America, compared
to the other great 20th century conductors. Which is a great pity because
he could have easily top that star-studded list…
They say that the great Herbert von Karajan once recorded Tchaikovsky’s
Fifth Symphony and was pretty much happy about it. He then asked the orchestra
manager to find him the record of the same symphony played by Mravinsky’s
orchestra. “I hear he did a good job playing it,” Karajan smiled.
Listening to Mravinsky’s record a whole three times in a single night,
Karajan called the studio in the morning and asked them to delete his own
version. He never got back to the Fifth Symphony again…
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