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1982
             
In June they were holding in Moscow the 7th International Tchaikovsky Competition, which traditionally brings together musicians competing in four categories: piano, violin, cello and singing. The 1982 event attracted a record 253 participants from 37 countries…
The Tchaikovsky competition enjoys well-deserved respect riding the wave of the resounding successes of its previous laureates. Not to be outdone, the 7th competition unveils a veritable constellation of new talents all destined to excel in their profession. British pianist Peter Donahue was one of those wide-eyed hopefuls just like violinist Victoria Mullova from Russia, cellist Antonio Menezes from Brazil, Georgian bass singer Paata Burchuladze, mezzo-soprano Dolora-Maria Zeitz from the United States and tenor Gegam Grigoryan from Armenia…
In Leningrad, composer Valery Gavrilin comes up with his highly unorthodox choral symphony he calls Ringing Bells. Hailing from the northern Russian city of Vologda, the 42-year-old author is bristling with old Russian folk songs, customs and traditions which he masterfully translates into music. Even though Valery Gavrilin says the symphony was inspired by the stories written by the famous contemporary actor, film director and author, Vasily Shukshin, the two men are of kin spirit both looking for answers to the eternal questions in the time-tested wisdom of the Russian people…
Gavrilin entrusts the first performance of the Ringing Bells to the acclaimed conductor Vladimir Minin and his Moscow Chamber Choir who offer a textbook performance of his new work…
A year later, the Ringing Bells are awarded the State Prize of the Soviet Union…
In February the Fyodor Chaliapin festival opens in Kazan on the Volga. The great Russian bass singer whose name the festival bears was born and spent his child years right here, in Kazan, where they have since opened a Chaliapin memorial museum. The festival, held in the city's famous opera theater, pays tribute to one of the greatest singers of all times offering the operas Chaliapin once excelled in winning the love and admiration of millions of fans around the world. Lead singers from all around the country are all here to take part in the memorial event which starts with Fyodor Chaliapin's recorded voice reverberating majestically though the giant hall…
The Chaliapin festivals have since been annually held in Kazan with the name of the preeminent bass singer adding zest and weight to the now traditional event…
In Moscow, the December Nights festival of chamber music is held for already the second time on the premises of the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. The festival's organizers, Pushkin museum curator Irina Antonova and pianist Svyatoslav Richter endeavor to bring music and painting harmoniously together… Unlike the previous year's event, which was all about the 19th century Russian art, this year's festival is about Mozart and his time.
It's been eight years since Gennady Rozhdestvensky was forced to quit as the chief conductor and artistic director of the symphony orchestra of Moscow Radio and Television. Having no orchestra of his own in Russia, he spends most of his time working in the West conducting symphony orchestras in Sweden and Britain. His main wish, however, is to work in his own country and in 1982 this dream finally comes true when Gennady Rozhdewstvensky is appointed chief conductor of a brand-new symphony orchestra the Ministry of Culture sets up under the Melodiya record label.
The new orchestra offers the Russian premiere of Sergei Prokofyev's ballet On the Dnieper which the composer wrote back in 1930 when he was still living in Paris. Prokofyev then entrusted the score to the care of Sergei Kusevitsky's music publishers. Shortly after the death of Kusevitsky, who emigrated to the West shortly after the 1917 October revolution, the publication rights for Prokofyev's ballet were acquired by Britain's Boozy & Hawks company and it wasn't until 1982 that the Soviet copyright agency bought the score and the ballet could finally be played here in Russia…
On October 27 the world was marking the 200th birthday of Niccolo Paganini. A string of major anniversary concerts was crowned by an unprecedented one-night performance of all the 24 Caprices Paganini wrote for violin solo. The daunting task of playing them all was taken up by the Leningrad Conservatory student and the 1982 Tchaikovsky competition winner Sergei Stadler…
An anniversary television series comes out whose authors ponder the life's work of one of the most enigmatic musicians who ever lived. The music is written by the Leningrad-based composer Sergei Banevich whose stirring melodies accompany the great virtuoso in his non-stop wanderings…
As usual, several leading Russian musicians win top national awards, among them composer Ian Frenkel whose songs are inherently patriotic without that time-serving, over-the-top, pathos so characteristic of the majority of the songs they were writing back in those days... Frenkel's melodious tunes, so sincere and romantic, invariably catch on with the people .
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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