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1968
             
During the Soviet years, compositional schools had emerged in virtually every part of Russia, even where professional art had never been practiced before. Many composers from the national republics had learned to combine the tried-and-true classical idiom with the local folk traditions. Murad Kazhlayev from Dagestan was working in exactly this vein churning out a motley mix of songs and symphonies and everything in between. In 1968 he came up with the Girl of the Mountains ballet about a young Dagestani woman trying to break free from the centuries-old family servitude. Kazhlayev took the score to the Kirov opera and ballet theater in Leningrad and choreographer Oleg Vinogradov readily took up the new work…
The tragic plot and the colorful music of the new ballet were perfectly played out by the finest dancers Leningrad could offer and The Girl of the Mountains won that year's State Prize…
In Moscow, the Bolshoi's chief choreographer Yuri Grigorovich makes a fresh new try at Aram Khachaturian's formidable ballet Spartacus coming up with a bold combination of emotionalism and lyricism. The lead parts are danced by the new generation stars Vladimir Vasilyev and Yekaterina Maximova.
"Grigorovich's Spartacus is all about mighty contradictions and stunningly dramatic juxtapositions," wrote a leading ballet critic of the time. "Underlying the ballet's movements, always alternating and intertwining, is a powerful rhythm which keeps the whole thing going strong…"
Yuri Grigorovich and the ballet's lead dancers were awarded this country's highest Lenin Prize for their new production of Khachaturian's timeless masterpiece…
Meanwhile, the Bolshoi's opera company takes up Tchaikovsky's Yevgeny Onegin - long the darling of Russia's opera-going public and a surefire box-office success. However, the cliche-ridden production sorely needed a facelift and so Mstislav Rostropovich ventured to breathe a new life into the all-time classic. The great cellist had already tried his hand in conducting but this new venture was a real challenge having under his hand a whole opera production and also having to light up the usually sedate operatic divas with a new rendition of Tchaikovsky's textbook opera.
Rostropovich's wife Galina Vishnevskaya was a great help providing a brilliant performance of the opera's main character, Tatyana Larina. The new production was a real celebration for the true connoisseurs of operatic art everywhere…
In Karevo, a small town in northwestern Russia, they opened a memorial house of the great 19th century Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky who was born there in March, 1839. The would-be composer spent his childhood years in a spacious family estate set amid the scenic flatlands stretching forever with small groves and crystal-clear lakes scattered in between. It was there that the little Modest was watching the everyday life of the local peasants and admired the songs they sung...
"Getting to know the spirit of the ordinary people's life hugely inspired my musical improvisations…" the composer wrote in his memoirs.
Mussorgsky's museum in Karevo has since become a veritable Mecca for musicians and artists from around the world.
In Moscow, a newly-formed piano duet of Vladimir Bakhchiyev and Yelena Sorokina was conquering the hearts of their audience with their tightly-knit performance and extensive repertoire running the gamut of musical styles from pieces of 19th Russian family music to European romanticism, to medieval miniatures and the charming pieces by Johann Schtrauss.
The Bakhchiyev-Sorokina duet eventually worked their way to a stellar status and, bringing together some of the country's finest chamber ensembles, they organized a larger-than-life music extravaganza…
The young Russian musicians were winning audiences at prestigious international competitions and reaffirming the well-deserved authority of this country's performing school. The 17 year-old Muscovite Yekaterina Novitskaya wins the gold medal participating at the Queen Elizabeth piano competition in Brussels…
The 24 year-old Moscow Conservatory post-graduate Viktoriya Postnikova was the best at the Vian da Mota contest in Lisbon…
And Leningrad's very own conductor Yuri Simonov bows out with the gold medal won at the very-prestigious competition in Rome instituted by the Santa Cecilia Academy…
Each of the said musicians is destined for a dream-come-true musical career…
In the summer they hold the 11th World Youth Festival in Sofia, Bulgaria which, as usual, comes with a slew of competitions, including pop music. The gold medal in the latter category goes to the young Russian singer Edita Pyekha. The French music critic Henri Panigel who presides over the jury hails her as an "outstanding chanteuse on a par with the very best ones you can possibly find in France…"
In Saratov on the Volga, a local conservatory graduate Nikolai Levinovsky forms a jazz outfit playing mostly his own music. The Allegro band brings together a team of excellent musicians, all of whom had previously played in popular music orchestras indulging in jazz in their spare time only. Before long, their solid professionalism and bubbling enthusiasm sent the Allegro band gigging all around in Moscow.
Times were also a'changing in Russian pop music. Composer David Tukhmanov releases his first LP whose songs are so unlike the ones they played on the radio every day. The fresh melodicism of Tukhmanov's songs, devoid of the patriotic pathos and the melodic and vocal vastness so typical of the Russian soul immediately caught on with the young who loved the little sensuous voice of Valery Obodzinsky serenading about the springtime which never ends and the heart-wrenching eyes looking at you from across the street …
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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