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1990
             
The whole world was celebrating the 150th birthday of Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The great Russian classic once wrote: "…my most cherished wish is for my music to keep spreading and going out to the hearts and souls of people everywhere…" That's exactly what happened and Tchaikovsky now tops the list of the world's most frequently performed composers…
Tchaikovsky music festivals were being held everywhere and new productions of his operas and ballets were being busily prepared all around the world. Adding to the general atmosphere of jubilation, the Ninth Tchaikovsky competition starts in Moscow where violinist Akiko Suwanai from Japan wins in her category and many other top awards are also taken by young contestants from Europe, Asia and America. Russia's Boris Berezovsky wins the piano contest, Gustav Rivinius from West Germany is named the competition's best cellist, Korean singer Hans Choi bows out with the gold medal, which he shares with his American colleague Deborah Voight.
Leningrad, now St.Petersburg, was gradually getting back its status of a national cultural center it had lost during decades of Soviet rule. Choirs from 13 countries descend on the city on the Neva in the spring to attend the First International Choir Festival held under the giant dome of the magnificent Smolny Cathedral…
Just as the summer sets in, the sounds of music fill the beautiful mansions and country estates-turned-museums once owned by the Russian Czars and their courtiers.
Taking part in the chamber music festival, aptly called Music in Palaces, are leading performers from Russia, the United States, France, Finland, Canada and West Germany.
At the Kirov Opera and Ballet Theater, now Mariinsky, the young chief conductor Valery Gergiyev holds a festival of music by Sergei Prokofyev. Never before have the operas and ballets written by one of the greatest 20th century composers, been presented with such love and on such a grand scale. Gergiyev offers the first-ever uncut presentation of Prokofyev's ballet War and Peace based on Leo Tolstoy's eponymous novel…
The festival put in the international spotlight the Kirov ballet company soon to be hailed as one of the world's very best…
President Gorbachev's democratic reforms and the easing East-West tensions were also influencing this country's cultural life. The world's number one musicians were now happily coming to perform in Russia, just like the great Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti who, on May 3, gave a solo concert here in Moscow…
And still, the biggest cultural highlight of the year was the arrival of Mstislav Rostropovich who hadn't been here ever since he was forced to leave the country in 1974. The decision to emigrate came after the dissent-hating Soviet authorities had made it virtually impossible for the great cellist to perform in and outside Russia. When Rostropovich asked them to let him out of the country for a few years, the then President Leonid Brezhnev's lickspittles hurried to strip the musician of his Soviet citizenship. Rostropovich was absolutely devastated by the news. Now, 16 years on, he was finally back in the formidable capacity of the chief conductor of the Washington Symphony Orchestra who played Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony and Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony in sold-out concerts in Moscow and Leningrad…
The first thing Rostropovich did in Moscow was to visit the grave of his beloved friend, Dmitry Shostakovich, who died in 1975. The performance of the Fifth Symphony was his heartfelt tribute to the memory of the great 20th century composer…
On January the bell tower of Moscow's famous St.Bazil's Cathedral came alive again sending wonderful sounds reverberating across the city. Church bell ringing was hard to find in an officially atheist country, let along in Red Square, right under the red star-topped Kremlin towers…
On March 11 they were celebrating at the Bolshoi Theater the 90th birthday of the great operatic tenor Ivan Kozlovsky who had established a cult following during the more than three decades he had sung on stage of this country's premiere theater. A visibly uplifted Kozlovsky - a handsome, gray-haired patriarch - was literally overwhelmed by congratulations, flowers and musical dedications showered on him by his fans who jam-packed the giant hall of the Bolshoi Theater…
In Moscow they launched the Russian Seasons record company - a joint Russian-French venture which turned out more than 20 CDs in a single year, including 16th- and 18th-century Orthodox church chants, half-forgotten Russian operas and rarely-played pieces by 20th century Russian classics…
On September 24, Sergei Nakoryakov, a 13 year-old trumpet-playing prodigy from Nizhny Novgorod, gives his first solo performance in Moscow. The premiere sends critical eyebrows sky-high with experts saying that "this guy was born with a trumpet in hand…"
The Moscow concert-going public welcomes two major debuts of the year. One, the Russian National Symphony Orchestra, is led by pianist Mikhail Pletnev who has handpicked the finest musicians he could ever find in other major-league orchestras…
The other newcomer is the Gelikon Opera established by the young director Dmitry Bertman in collaboration with a team of close friends, all fresh from the city's Institute of Performing Arts. The new company asserts its preference for the show over music resulting in highly imaginative, driven and erotically tinged productions long missing from the country's modern-day operatic scene.
The Soviet Army's famous song and dance ensemble, named after its founder Alexander Alexandrov, makes its first tour of the United States performing in big cities and military bases alike. The uniformed singers and dancers give 109 concerts in all attended by more than 200,000 people …
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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