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1991
             
The year 1991 was the last in the history of a giant nation which took up one-sixth of the world's land mass and was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics...
The year started with a tragedy in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius where thousands of citizens came out to defend the local television center, which symbolized the Baltic republic's long pent-up desire for freedom. The local Communist authorities had posted troops around the facility making a bloody showdown inevitable. Dozens of people were killed and injured in the ensuing clash...
The tragic developments in Vilnius struck a painful chord with democratically-minded politicians, journalists and musicians all across the nation. In Moscow, composer Alfred Schnittke wrote a musical homage to the victims' memory based on Lithuanian folk tunes…
The gloomiest of prophesies once made by the great Russian humanist and rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov were coming terribly true... Only a handful of people took them seriously when Sakharov was still alive though. His parliamentary colleagues simply dismissed him as just another old man gone out of his mind and few could imagine back in those days that Sakharov would posthumously come to symbolize the fledgling Russian democracy and bring together the country's brightest talents. On May 21, Sakharov's birthday, Svyatoslav Richter, Yuri Bashmet and Mstislav Rostropovich partnered on stage in a gala concert dedicated to the memory of the great human rights champion...
Three months later, when tanks lined up the Moscow streets in an attempted coup staged by Mikhail Gorbachev's hard-line opponents, Mstislav Rostropovich was again in the middle of it all. The moment he learned about what was happening in Russia, the great musician took the first plane to Moscow and, a few hours later, he already joined the defenders of the White House parliament headquarters. He was even issued a Kalashnikov assault rifle but, happily, he never chanced to use it. Three days later things straightened out and Rostropovich could now get back to his beloved cello...
In April when the country's musical community was celebrating the centennial birthday of Sergei Prokofyev, many world-famous musicians converged on Prokofyev's memorial museum in the village of Solntsevka in Ukraine where the great Russian composer was born on April 23 of 1891.
In Leningrad where Prokofyev spent his child and student years, they held a flurry of anniversary festivals, the biggest and most fascinating of them all happening at the Kirov Theater, now Mariinsky.
They were holding a festival of Prokofyev's music also in Moscow where the composer spent the ebbing years of his life. The festival was organized by conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, probably the best interpreter of Prokofyev's symphonies...
On May 4 they were already celebrating the 60th birthday of Rozhdestvensky himself with an anniversary concert in the Conservatory Big Hall in Moscow where the great conductor received many musical presents, such as the Solemn Chant written by Alfred Schnittke and an equally impressive musical valedictory from Rodion Schedrin. The 60th birthday of the outstanding conductor and tireless propagator of everything that is good and new in music was a major musical highlight of the year 1991...
In the summer the Bolshoi Opera headed for the United States where, led by conductor Alexander Lazarev, they treated audiences in New York and Washington to new renditions of classical operas by Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. Despite occasional critical barbs, the overall impression was quite good with may critics lavishing praise on Nina Rautio and several other young singers.
The following month the Bolshoi company took part in the world-famous music festival in Edinburgh. The performances coincided with the failed coup attempt in Moscow which added additional spice to the whole event... The British government even offered asylum to those Russian musicians who might refuse to get back, but the coup's failure spared them such an excruciating choice. When the Bolshoi company returned to Moscow a few days later, the city looked different with its main streets still scarred by tank tracks...
The country was going literally mad about young prodigies with Moscow leading the nation in the number of talent searching competitions...
In early September they were holding in Moscow one such contest named after the great Russian impresario Sergei Dyagilev who launched to international stardom so many young Russian ballet superstars at the dawn of the century. This time round it was the turn of the 11- year-old virtuoso Yekaterina Menshikova to bring the house down and 12- year-old cellist Dmitry Prokofyev put up an equally formidable performance at the Youth Art Assemblies competition held in winter...
On the pop scene, singer-songwriter Igor Talkov had endeared himself to millions of Russians whom his serious and clever songs helped to survive the crumbling of time-tested values... As thousands of defenders of democracy celebrated around the White House parliament building in downtown Moscow, Talkov was there singing his stirringly uplifting songs while millions of others watched the televised event...
Six days later, on October 6, Igor Talkov was shot down backstage at the Yubileiny concert hall in Leningrad. Who did it and why we still don't know...
On December 31 millions of people were bidding farewell to the outgoing year 1991, the Soviet Union and its stirring anthem composer Alexander Alexandrov wrote fifty years before …
 
THE RUSSIAN MUSICAL HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY is prepared for you by Olga Fyodorova.


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