In 1909 Igor Stravinsky's name began increasingly appearing on
St.Petersburg's billboards. The medium-heighted elegant young composer,
always dressed up to the nines, showcased his first compositions to the
broad public.
Igor Stravinsky initially took private lessons in orchestration
and free composition with the great Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. He never studied
at the Conservatory though and so he held no Conservatory diploma or any
other certificate of graduation. As a university student, he read law but
showed no special aptitude for his studies having apparently made up his
mind to devote himself to composition. His father, Fyodor, was a well known
operatic bass singer who shone on the stage of the Imperial Mariinsky Theater
which means that Stravinsky was reared in a musical atmosphere. And still,
very few people could ever imagine in 1909 that the popularity of Stravinsky
Jr. would some day overshadow that of his father. The symphonic poem “
Fireworks “ put to the real test the young Stravinsky's compositional skills.
This beautiful piece of music was heard at an orchestral concert by Sergei
Dyagilev who was so favorably impressed that he asked the young composer
to write a ballet score for the 1910 season of the Russian Ballet. In the”
Fireworks” which Stravinsky wrote for the June 17,1908 marriage of Rimsky-Korsakov’s
daughter he showed how fully he had assimilated the romantic idiom and
orchestral palette of his teacher. For many years the joint effort bent
by the young composer and the brilliant impresario was working miracles
in the world of arts.
And what was the famous impresario Sergei Dyagilev doing in 1909?
Three years before that he started exporting Russian art abroad. It all
began in 1907 with an exhibition and a series of concerts of Russian chamber
music. This was followed by the much-acclaimed Historical Concerts of Russian
music and in 1908 he stunned Paris with a larger-than-life production of
Modest Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov with a cast led by the great operatic
bass Fyodor Chaliapin. And what was Dyagilev up to now, in 1909?
In 1909 he inaugurated the so-called Russian Seasons art festivals
- a brilliant blending of musical, choreographic and scenic elements that
offered artistic spectacles of the highest order in an eye-opening presentation
of Russian talent.
For some reason the idea did not sit well with Russia's high
and mighty. Emperor Nicholas the Second personally weighed in banning all
financing for Dyagilev's project. The entrepreneur raised money on the
side but the intrigues continued. When the French refused the Russians
permission to perform at the Grand Opera, Dyagilev arranged for the concert
to take place at the Theatre du Chatelet ignoring the place's frivolous
reputation and stage that was absolutely unfit for major productions. Dyagilev
undertook to reconstruct the theater and had the work done in practically
no time.
On May 18th, 1909 three and a half thousand people thronged the
renovated Theatre du Chatelet, among them Cabinet Ministers, diplomats,
aristocrats, writers, composers and artists. Black ties, jewelry-studded
gowns and ... a deafening success!
Dyagilev presented the most colorful scenes from Russian operas
and a number of one-act ballets. The singers were much appreciated but
the biggest praise went to the dancers, especially the unbelievably synchronous
corps de ballet and, of course, to the great dancers Anna Pavlova and Vaclav
Nijinsky. The French also loved the Polovtsian Dances from Alaxander Borodin's
opera Prince Igor.
"Listening to the Polovtsian Dances, one gets the picture
of primordial and passionately aggressive blood of the Golden Horde bubbling
before our very eyes," raved a French critic. "We haven't seen
the real Polovtsians dancing, of course," he continued, "but
Michel Fokine's choreography makes us believe that this might exactly be
the way they danced. The music and choreography are absolutely what Nikolai
Roerich had in mind designing the costumes and decorations whose color
palette is something Paris has never seen before. The opera is set against
the golden-red skies rising above the steppe-lands stretching forever interlaced
with the smokes rising up from the nomadic tents. The whole picture perfectly
blends into the dance and the voices of the singers and the orchestra bring
out some very special feelings deep in our souls..."
The 1909 Russian Seasons festival was a string of 20 performances
watched by 70,000 people and, critics heaping praise on what had ushered
in a whole new artistic tradition...
In St.Petersburg, composer Anatoly Lyadov was writing his musical
miniatures always taking his time and with enormous attention to detail.
The result of this meticulous effort were compositions carefully polished
like a jeweler does his stones...
In 1909 Lyadov completed two symphonic poems which became immediate
classics...
On the last page of notational paper of one of them, titled The
Enchanted Lake, Lyadov penciled in an eerie picture of still water, riverside
rush and a gloomily enigmatic thicket stretching behind...
The other poem, Kikimora, was supplied with a literary explanation
which goes like this: "There is a magician bringing up a marsh monster
high up in the rocky mountains. A learned cat is telling her tales during
the day and she spends the nights sleeping in a crystal cradle... 7 years
on, kikimora is a dark-skinned and scary-looking creature with a little
head and a reed-thin body always whistling, stomping and hating the whole
world..."
In October 1909 the 37 year-old Sergei Rakhmaninoff was making
his first tour of the United States. The Wolfsohn Bureau had contracted
him to give 20 concerts where Rakhmaninoff performed as a pianist, conductor
and composer all in one. Already a cult figure in Europe, Rakhmaninoff
was now out to conquer America as well.
New York was the first venue to hear Rakhmaninoff's Third Piano
Concerto written especially for the American tour. The piano part was played
by the author himself.
"This breathtaking beautiful music brings out the endless
expanses of Russia, her inner might which seems to have so richly fed Rakhmaninoff's
amazing talent," exulted one American critic.
In summer of 1909 Nizhny Novgorod was playing host to a giant
annual trade fair where merchants from all over the country were showcasing
their best goods. After dark, hectic daytime trading would give way to
concerts and exhibitions with the country's leading performers scrambling
for the right to sing or play on stage of the city's Grand Hall of Fairs.
One such night there came out on stage a young singer whose name was Nadezhda
Plevitskaya. The moment she started singing everyone immediately fell silent
mesmerized by the inimitable beauty of her deep and richly-textured voice...
The famed Moscow tenor Leonid Sobinov who once chanced to hear
Plevitskaya singing was so stunned by her talent that he immediately offered
her to perform in a major charity concert. That performance sealed Plevitskaya's
fate and a few months later, she was already being torn apart by impresarios
eager to cash in on the fast-rising star who was now singing at the most
prestigious venues in Moscow and St.Petersburg.
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
