Peak of symphonism: GASO RT celebrated its anniversary with music about the Alps
Alexander Sladkovsky celebrated the 60th anniversary of his team in Moscow by climbing to the mountain peaks.: The State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan (GASO RT). The chosen program — Ludwig van Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto and Richard Strauss's monumental "Alpine Symphony", which is extremely rarely performed here — was designed to demonstrate the skills of the birthday boys and prove that they can do any musical route. How this "walk" turned out is described in the Izvestia article.
Between classics and romance
The founding date of the GASO RT is October 1, 1966. The orchestra and its artistic director are practically the same age: the maestro was born less than a year before his band: October 20, 1965. So the anniversary of the conductor can be said to have smoothly turned into the anniversary of the GASO, which has been actively celebrated since the beginning of the month. But the culmination of the celebrations, the most ambitious declaration of the creative form of the band and its potential, was a concert in Moscow.
In a packed Tchaikovsky Hall, GASO RT presented a program that by no means looks purely "Danish": instead of the orchestral hits more familiar in such a "festive" format — all kinds of fragments from popular operas or something similar - the band relied on two very complex opuses that require considerable effort from both musicians and musicians. from the listeners. The first section featured Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto (soloed by Alexander Romanovsky), and the second section featured Strauss's Alpine Symphony (organ part performed by Evgenia Krivitskaya).
What do these works have in common? Perhaps the fact that both of them mark the end of epochs is that in the case of Beethoven, we are talking about classicism, while Strauss sums up romanticism a century later. But for the orchestra, this is an opportunity to appear in two different roles.: The classical paired (in professional terminology) line—up in the Third Concert should sound bold and transparent; the huge quadruple in the Alpine Symphony should sound magnificent, colorful, and luxurious.
Alexander Sladkovsky, Chief Conductor of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Republic of Tatarstan
GASO RT showed all this clearly. At first, it might even seem that the orchestra lacked sound mass in Beethoven's work. However, it soon became clear that this was not the case: in the climaxes, the scale was fully felt, but the composure, harmony, and clarity remained. But I was especially impressed by the coherence of the playing, the excellent mutual understanding between the musicians just in quiet places — in the slow lyrical part, where every phrase, every chord is in plain sight. And it was clearly closest to Alexander Romanovsky: in his interpretation, it was felt that romanticism was already within reach, although he did not allow himself any liberties uncharacteristic of Beethoven's style.
The encore blurred this impression a little: at the end of the first movement, the pianist decided to play the finale of the Moonlight Sonata and, it seems, in the euphoria of success, he took a very rapid pace, "drove" the music, losing his inner composure and the feeling of incredible tension that exists in this famous movement. The audience, however, generously forgave Romanovsky for all his shortcomings, awarding him a standing ovation for his undisputed virtuosity.
They should go to the mountains
The main event of the evening was the performance of the "Alpine Symphony", a work that rarely sounds from the stage due to the huge composition of the orchestra and the equally impressive duration (almost an hour). In addition, there are no well-known melodies, and in general, this is not the most attractive thing for the general public, moreover, it requires a lot of patience and concentration. But this particular opus, composed by Strauss as a gift to his favorite band, the Dresden Chapel, is the best way to demonstrate the orchestra's capabilities.
About 130 musicians participate in its performance, including an additional brass band hidden behind the stage, as well as an organ, a celesta, cow bells, a tom—tom, a glockenspiel and two noise installations more familiar as theater props: a wind and thunder machine. Such impressive artistic forces are designed to depict a walk in the mountains. At least, this is indicated by the name and the author's program: Strauss gave each of the 22 parts a verbal description indicating the stages of the journey, the weather and the time of day.
An attentive listener, of course, will immediately notice that the musical fabric, full of drama, stormy feelings and pathos, does not really correspond to the declared landscape serenity (even if overshadowed by weather adversities). The secret revealed by presenter Artyom Vargaftik is that Strauss' original idea was not about the Alps at all, but about Nietzsche's ideas. Which, in the end, seemed to the author too provocative for a work intended as a gift, so they were disguised in a completely harmless "plot" in the finished score.
However, the truth is in the middle: one should not assume that the natural component is pure fiction and self—censorship. Long before reading Nietzsche, Strauss had been thinking about depicting a mountain walk in symphonic music. And in this case, it seems that such different ideas are layered on top of each other, combined in one opus. A favorite romantic motif is the conquest of the peaks (recall the painting by Kaspar David Friedrich "The Wanderer over the sea of Mist") — it is embodied as a metaphor for the path of life, with overcoming obstacles, striving for the ideal and the final departure into oblivion.
Reach for the peaks
Another thing is that it seems that the ideas and philosophy here are drowned in endless orchestral effects and composer's balancing act. Like a magician, Strauss strives to surprise the listener with something every minute. Hunting horns will suddenly sound out of nowhere (they are represented by French horns hidden from the viewer); the ultra-low hum of the organ will fill the hall with an almost physically palpable vibration; and finally, the blows on a suspended metal sheet (the same thunder machine) turn out to be an attraction not only for the ears, but also for the eyes. As a result, the whole is perceived as a kaleidoscope of vivid musical pictures, rather than a conversation about life and death.
But this deliberate redundancy in itself turns out to be a metaphor for maximalism and the contradictions of the era. Alpine was born in 1911-1915, when a premonition of the death of the old world was in the air, and the great European empires were living out their last days. In the history of music, it became the pinnacle of the evolution of symphonism (which began just in the era of classicism) and at the same time marked its crisis, since there is nowhere else to move along this path.
Having celebrated the anniversary with this particular opus, Sladkovsky and GASO RT demonstrated that they can even handle such an "everest" of the romantic orchestral repertoire. And at the same time, they raised an audience that, even after such a difficult "ascent," is ready to demand an encore — it became the "Dance of the Seven Veils" from Strauss's "Salome." And although this number sounds at a very tense moment in the opera, and its content is by no means cheerful (the beautiful Salome performs an erotic dance in front of King Herod, intending to demand the head of the captive John the Baptist as a reward), after an intense hour-long "mountaineering", the number was perceived as an exhalation, a long-awaited blissful rest for a traveler who allowed himself to smile and relax a little with an almost jazzy intonation.
The orchestra, however, was not relaxing at all at that moment — the coherence, skill of all groups and concentration were required here no less than in a symphony. And besides, the anniversary concert has passed, but for GASO RT and his artistic director, the conquest of professional heights continues.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
