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1985
             
40 years has passed since the end of World War 2… The allied victory over Nazi Germany took a deadly toll on this country. In 1985 we believed we had lost nearly 20 million only to find out later that the actual figure was almost 10 million more…
It's absolutely amazing how people managed to create such great works of art during those trying years, including dozens of beautiful lyrical songs. In the run-up to the memorable date, the popular actress and singer Lyudmila Gurchenko offers a whole program of best-loved wartime songs…
The songs were recorded on television and have since been regularly played during the May 9 Victory Day celebrations…
The composer Alfred Schnittke, still scandalously popular in Russia, comes up with an inspired, romantically-tinged concerto for viola and orchestra which he dedicates to Yuri Bashmet who made viola so much respected all around the world…
Yuri Bashmet hails the new concerto as one of the greatest pieces of music written in the 20th century…
A few years later, Yuri Bashmet made this melody from Schnittke's concerto the signature tune of his Dreams Station television program.
In Moscow, the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts is playing host to another annual December Nights art and music festival. The event, held under the World of Romanticism motto, brings together early 19th century European painters and music by Schubert, Schumann and Chopin.
The list of participants reads like a Who's Who of European music many of whom are good friends of the event's organizer, Svyatoslav Richter. One of the greatest pianists of all time is also taking part playing solo concerts and being joined on stage by various chamber ensembles.
On June 3 they were celebrating the 90th birthday of Mark Reizen. The great operatic bass started out back in 1921 singing in Kharkov and Leningrad and in 1930 he joined the Bolshoi company. He had since wowed audiences in Berlin, Paris, London and Monte Carlo and his powerful bass was still sounding strong and fresh when the great singer walked out on stage at the Bolshoi Theater singing Gremin's part in Pyotr Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin…
The audience was listening with bated breath awed by the 90 year-old Reizen's masterful performance of Gremin's extremely difficult aria…
On October 14 one of the greatest pianists of all time, Emil Gilels, suddenly dies, missing by a mere five days his 69th birthday…
Gilels shot to fame on the strength of his dazzling performance at the First National Music Competition in 1933 where the 16 year-old pianist's phenomenal virtuosity and red-hot ingenuity literally sent people to their feet applauding like mad… As the years wore on, Gilels was getting wiser, more reserved and better understanding of what beauty was all about… There was hardly any other pianist in the whole world who could play Mozart, Chopin and, later, Beethoven, the way he did…
Adored by millions of fans around the world, Emil Gilels was elected an honorary member of various music societies and organization, such as the Royal Music Academy in London and the Ferenz Liszt Academy in Budapest. The City of Paris awarded him a Gold Medal and the Belgians bestowed on Gilels their much-coveted King Leopold I Order… But, above all that, Emil Gilels was a Musician by the grace of God…
On December 25 the Bolshoi Theater offered a single-night premiere of two one-act Italian operas, Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni and Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Operas by the so-called "verists" were still new here and their openly bubbling passions didn't sit well with Russian singers. There were some opera singers, however, who had already had a brush with such operas in the West. Just like the Bolshoi diva Yelena Obraztsova who had sung Santuzza's part in Cavalleria Rusticana many times over and had even appeared in a Franco Zeffirelli film of three years back partnering with tenor Placido Domingo and conductor Georges Praitre. During the Moscow premiere, Obraztsova sings with tenor Zurab Sotkilava and her husband conductor Algis Ziurajtis…
Participating in a piano competition in Warsaw, the 19-year-old Stanislav Bunin wins the Grand Prix. The Moscow Conservatory student also bows out with another 20 special awards…
Stanislav Bunin dazzles the jury and the audience with his gentle and very fragile musical images and his impeccable taste which is so hard to find among the modern-day interpreters of romantic music…
Another Russian whiz kid, the 11 year-old violinist Maxim Vengerov, was astounding audiences in Poland making easy work of his competition at the prestigious Lipinski and Wenjawski festival…
Maxim Vengerov lives in Novosobirsk where he studies under the well-known music authority, Professor Zakhar Bron. A few years later the two emigrate to the West where Maxim makes an excellent career…
In July they are holding in Moscow a World Youth Festival. Once very popular political forums regularly held in the capitals of the socialist states in Europe, Asia and Latin America, the festivals have since lost much of their former clout, and now look more like a carnival…
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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