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By Larisa Roshina

On September 6 the chief conductor of the State Symphony Orchestra Yevgeny Svetlanov turned 70. In a message of greetings President Yeltsin said: "Your original talent and optimistic art is admired and appreciated both in Russia and abroad. You have gained recognition as a subtle interpreter of work of various genres. Great talent always has many facets. We also know you as a gifted composer, the author of symphonic music, romances and songs".
Undoubtedly, Svetlanov's dearest creation is the State Symphony Orchestra, which has the reputation of an orchestra of top world class. He has led it for more than 30 years.
"It happened so that the orchestra I met for the first time in 1954, when I was still taking a graduate course at the Moscow Conservatory, became my only and dear creation, the State Symphony Orchestra. It's gratifying that our orchestra is regarded as one of the world's greatest both in the level of performance and in the level of works it interprets."
A few years ago Yevgeny Svetlanov completed a titanic work, or, as he puts it, "performed his duty". In the course of nearly a quarter of a century he recorded an anthology of Russian classical music ranging from Mikhail Glinka (the early 19th century) to Nikolai Myaskovsky (the mid-20th century).
At present Maestro Svetlanov works with the world's leading symp- honyc orchestras in Japan, France and Sweden. On the eve of his birth anniversary he gave a concert with the Orchestra of Radio Sweden in one of the most prestigious halls of Stockholm. The orchestra performed Svetlanov's First Symphony and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, with Vadim Repin as the soloist. One of the leaders of the Swedish orchestra Lennart Stenkwist presented Svetlanov with a memorial gift: a watch framed with famous Swedish crystal. "We, musicians working with Svetlanov, can better than anybody else understand the great role this conductor plays for world music," Lennart Stenkwist said.
The toys currently on display at the All-Russia Museum of Applied and Folk Arts create a comfortable world of childhood and make visitors admire the craftsmanship of the masters who made them. From everywhere there are the eyes of dolls looking at you.
The organizer of the exhibition and a museum staffer, Nikolai Prokhorov, said to our correspondent:
"The exhibition features traditional folk toys obtained at different times by the well-known Moscow-based collector Yuri Polivanov. For many years Polivanov was the chief artist of the publishing house for children, "Malysh". His duties took him all around this country and abroad. From everywhere Yuri brought toys. Some were given to him by friends and acquaintances, others specially bought for the collection. In this way he made up a collection of more than 800 items. After the artist's death in 1989, the museum received it from the artist's widow."
Since then parts of the collection have been displayed at different exhibitions. The current exposition comprises only one fourth of the collection but, nevertheless, features toys from many parts of Russia, including such traditional centers of folk art as Gorodets, Filimonovo, Dymka, Sergiev Posad, and Bogorodskoye, and from abroad - Japan, India, Latin America, Africa, Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Belorussia.
Craftsmen used wood, clay, papier-mache, paper and corn leaves to create miraculous things. You just cannot keep your eyes off these toys - so beautiful they are! Here are Russian toys: young ladies made of clay and painted bright pink with cross, multi-colored stripes, birds and horses from Filimonovo. Also of clay colorful compositions from Dymka, featuring feasts and scenes of public merry-making with swings and merry-go-rounds. Wooden bears and rabbits carved by masters from Bogorodskoye can do what people do: plant trees, work machines and play football.
Toys from Poland and the Czech Republic reflect everyday life of peasants. Made of corn leaves they depict hunters, woodcutters, a mother rocking a baby to sleep, scenes of harvesting, or even a girl admiring herself in the mirror.
According to the exhibition organizer Nikolai Prokhorov, visitors have been particularly attracted to work by German masters from Zaiffen and Sonneberg, two old centers producing wooden turned and carved toys. Among these Christmas candlesticks, models of turning shops, tiny figures of domestic animals, looking like toys from Sergiev Posad, and the famous nutcrackers. The exhibition boasts a dozen of these. Each has a face and a uniform different from those of the others. The nutcrackers are not bellicose at all, but funny and touching. They immediately put you in mind of the celebrated tale by Hoffmann and ballet by Tchaikovsky.
 
 

 

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