1910 was one of the few years in Russian history to go by without
wars, revolutions, economic upheavals and natural calamities...
In 1910 the Moscow Synodal Choir was celebrating its bicentennial
anniversary. Once a rather mediocre outfit, the choir, led by its brilliant
conductor Nikolai Danilin, had worked its way up to become one of the world's
best - a quality they amply proved during their highly successful tour
of Europe.
"The Moscow Synodal Choir blew us all away with their sound"
gasped the precentor of the Sistine Choir in Rome, Lorenzo Perrozi. "The
choirs we have here have a long way to go to match the exquisitely refined
performance of the Russian singers..."
In 1910 Sergei Rakhmaninoff entrusted the first performance of
his Liturgy of St.John Chrysostomus to the Moscow Synodal Choir.
The Liturgy was a really a one-of-a-kind composition. Rakhmaninoff
delved deeply into the ancientmost layers of the Russian Orthodox music
replacing the no-nonsense archaisms with vibrantly buoying lyricism...
When writing his Liturgy, Rakhmaninoff overstepped the strict
canonical rules which for centuries had governed Russian church music.
The new composition just didn't belong in the time-tested tradition and
was not allowed to be played in churches. Spiritually, however, it was
a genuinely Christian piece of music and several years later, it was banned
altogether by the Bolsheviks who fiercely fought every mention of God.
That was how one of the most beautiful pieces of Russian music was cast
into oblivion and remained there for sixty long years...
It was only in the late-1970’s that the well-known choirmaster
Vladimir Minin finally ventured to perform the Liturgy only to be told
he could play only selected parts. Moreover, the very name Liturgy was
taken off the billboards which only mentioned excerpts from Rakhmaninoff's
Opus 31. It was not until the mid-Nineties that people finally had a chance
to fully appreciate Sergei Rakhmaninoff's timeless masterpiece...
In January composer and pianist Alexander Skryabin returned to
Moscow after spending two years in Brussles and rented a small mansion
nestled comfortably inside the peace and quiet of the city's inner streets.
"I'd like to rent this place until May 1st, 1915," he told the
landowner, "and then we'll see..." Skryabin's timing proved frighteningly
prophetical... On April 27th, 1915 the 43 year-old composer suddenly died
falling only two days short of his prediction...
Let's get back to the year 1910, though, when Skryabin was still
alive and bubbling with energy.He had just returned to Russia on the strength
of his triumphal performances in the West and to frenzied critical and
popular acclaim in his own country. In spring, Skryabin's good friend and
admirer, Sergei Koussevitzky, invited him on a major tour of the Volga
cities. Enlisting the services of the country’s finest orchestra, the organizers
chartered a steamship complete with a grand piano and sailed downstream
stopping over and playing concerts at very big city on the way. Skryabin
opened up playing his Piano Concerto to the strains of the symphony orchestra
conducted by Koussevitzky. The Piano Concerto was followed by a string
of smaller pieces...
11 cities and 19 sold-out concerts later, Skryabin was already
a cult figure whose compositional skills could only be matched by his absolutely
brilliant performance...
In 1910 Paris was all abuzz with talk about the famous Russian
impresario Sergei Dyagilev who was still basking in the fame and glory
brought him by the highly successful Russian Seasons ballet festival he
organized the year before. Dyagilev was too energetic and inventive, however,
to just rest on his laurels and, before long, he decided to focus more
squarely on ballet as an art he thought was more internationally-minded
than opera. Already in the fall of 1909 Dyagilev contracted several prominent
composers to write new ballets he was going to stage. Almost none of them
seemed enthralled by the idea, though, the only exception being the young
Igor Stravinsky who eagerly took up the commission. A few months later
he was already through with The Fire Bird - an original work on the subject
of the eponymously titled Russian fairy tale.
Stravinsky was working closely with choreographer Michel Fokine
who prompted the rhythms exactly fitting the tempo of the dance he had
expressly invented for the new production. The composer and choreographer
were working off each other, mutually influenced by their fantasies...
Years later, Michel Fokine reminisced:
"I was miming scenes for Stravinsky. It was real hard to
musically arrange the scene when Ivan-Tsarevich climbs the fence and starts
watching the miracles of the enchanted garden. It was clear from the very
start that we shouldn't give the whole scene in one take but, instead,
would make do with just small hints. I was impersonating Ivan-Tsarevich
and we used Stravinsky's piano as a fence. I climbed it, looked around,
went down again and walked about, looking around me in mock bewilderment.
Stravinsky was watching me closely repeating my every move with short,
pertinent riffs..."
Stravinsky had the music down by springtime and one day Dyagilev
got all the interested people together in his St.Petersburg apartment to
give it a listen. French critic Roger Brussels was there and this is how
he describes the audition:
"Sitting at the piano was a young man, reserved and silent,
with energetic features and a willful mouth. The moment he started to play,
I thought the whole room lit up with blinding light. Emerging powerfully
from the sheets of notational paper was a real masterpiece"...
In June 1910 The Fire Bird premiered at Paris' Grand Opera. The
exclusive audience representing the cream of the city's beau monde was
literally blown away by the amazingly refined dancing by Tamara Karsavina
and Michel Fokine, the fanciful and shining scenery by Alexander Golovin
and, of course, the fantastic music by the 27 year-old Igor Stravinsky
whose larger-than-life talent had already been appreciated and blessed
by the great Claude Debussis...
Apart from The Fire Bird, the program of the 1910 Russian Seasons
festival also featured ballets by Schumann, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov.
After a string of 17 concerts in Paris, Sergei Dyagilev's Ballet Russe
company crossed the English Channel to give 25 more on stage of London's
famous Drury Lane theater.
In 1910 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov published a book of memoirs in
St.Petersburg which encompassed his fifty years in music, all replete with
memorable events, unforgettable encounters and premiers. The book was immediately
sold out and has since been re-published over and over again...
In the fall of 1910 St.Petersburg was playing host to an International
Piano Competition which the great Anton Rubinstein had organized late in
the 19th century. Back in those days the competition was the only authoritative
contest of performing musicians they had. Among the winners of the 1910
event was the 23 year-old Polish pianist Artur Rubinstein who was no relation
to the competition's organizer. Artur Rubinstein eventually emerged as
one of the most brilliant musicians the 20th century has ever had...
Also in 1910 an army bandleader and music teacher Yevgeny Dreizen
wrote his Beryozka waltz which became an immediate hit and is still being
extensively performed in Russia.
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH
CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.
