SLAVIC VOICES presents RACHMAININOFF, SVIRIDOV, AND

Please hold your applause until after each song cycle.

SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943) RACHMANINOFF

1. A dream 2. Yesterday we met 3. Sing not, my Beauty

Moments Musicaux no. 6, op.16

GEORGY SVIRIDOV (1915-1998)

Petersburg: a song cycle on the poems of Alexander Blok 1. The Weathercock 2. The Golden Oar 3. The Bride 4. A Voice from the Chorus 5. I am Nailed to a Tavern Counter SVIRIDOV 6. The Wind has Carried from Far Away 7. Petersburg Song 8. Those Born in these God-Forsaken Times 9. Holy Madonna in the City

Ben Flanders baritone Elena Kholodova Translations A dream Weathercock I had such a homeland; All is still, and all will be stillness. It was so beautiful! The useless flag has been lowered. There the spruce swayed above me... Only the weathercock on the roof But it was a dream! Sweetly sings of the future. A family of lively friends All around The wind catches his wings, Calling out words of love to me… flung wide across the sky, But it was a dream! (text Pleshcheyev after Heine) Flustered by the smoke and sun, The poor rooster is frozen, Do not sing, my beauty, Baffled by the deep blue infinity. Your songs of sad Georgia; They recall to me Fragrant hot pine-sap, that other life and distant shore. Far off in the distance, eternal mist Ah, sweet song of the weathercock: Alas, your savage melodies, Sing to me! Tin rooster! Remind me of the steppes, of the night, of the moonlit face of some poor, distant maiden! The Golden Oar We always met at sunset. That beloved, fateful vision, Your oar broke the surface of the bay. When you are before me, I forget; I loved your white dress, but then you sing, and before me Past loves became like airy dreams. That memory rises anew. They were strange chance meetings. Do not sing, my beauty, There by the sandy strand, your songs of sad Georgia; They were lighting the evening lights. they recall to me Someone was mourning a pale beauty. that other life and distant shore. (text by Polonsky) Approach, Connection, the kindling fire, All rejected by the azure night… Yesterday we met: she halted. We met in the evening mists, and I... Our eyes met... Near the shore, by ripple, and reed. O, God! How she has changed, The fire in her eyes has died out, Neither sadness, nor love, nor resentment, her cheeks grown pale... All fade into darkness, the past, falls away… And for a time I stared at her, silently, severely... That white figure, the voices of the requiem Her hand outstretched, the poor little soul smiled; And your golden oar. I wanted to speak; but she ordered me, For God’s sake be silent, and then turned away, and frowned, and pulled away her hand, and spake: “Farewell, until we meet again!” While I only wanted to say: “Goodbye forever, Farewell, ruined, sweet creature!” (text by Polonsky) The Bride Lies and cunning know no bounds The icon (Holy mother, assuage my sorrows) And welcome death-is far off. Precedes the coffin, radiant, peaceful. This terrible world will darken. Following the coffin, veiled, in mourning And this whirlwind of planets, The bride, saying farewell to her bridegroom… Faster and ever faster in times to come…

He was just some “fashionable” writer, And in the final days, the worst of all, Only a dabbler in blasphemous words… We will watch, you and IAs But the dead are dear to the soul of the people: a vile sin paints the heavens, Which holds all deaths sacred. The laughter will freeze on our lips, As we feel the misery of lifelessness. As the cortege passes, they bow, cross themselves With thoughtful, downcast faces. You will wait for spring, my dear And friends and family raise a cloud of dust, But spring will deceive you. On the icon, on the bride, on the coffin. You will call for the sun in the sky- And the sun will not rise. And with all this endless sadness And your wails when you cry out, (not for him-god knows for who…) Will sink like a stone… She accepts these words of sympathy And wreaths randomly piled on wreaths… So be content with your lives Quiet as water, lower than grass! These well worn phrases, over and over, Oh if you only knew my dears, No one needs these words- The cold and darkness of the coming days! She holds them up like the jewels of creation, Like some secret smile of god. I am nailed to a tavern counter As if here, where they sing and burn incense, Here I am, nailed to a tavern counter. Where even death cannot be peaceful, Drunk so, so long. It’s all the same to me. Her beauty protected from the dust by her bridal The troika has carried off my happiness, veil She awaits a new bridegroom. Carried it away on a silver cloud…

Flying away on a sleigh, adrift A Voice from the chorus In the snows of time, in the distant past... How often we weep- you and I and the silver haze from the pounding hooves Over our miserable lives! Has overwhelmed my soul… Oh, friends, if only you knew, The cold, dark days ahead! Into the enveloping dark, the sparks fly From the sparks, all the night is light… Now you press your sweethearts’ hand The bells on the harness prattle on Joking, flirting, About happiness gone forever… And you weep, discovering a lie, or a knife in a lover’s hand And only the golden harness Oh my child, poor child! Shining in the night...is heard all night… And you, my soul...my empty soul… Are resplendently drunk...so so drunk… The wind has carried from afar Why does she drop A hint of the song of spring, These happy phrases? Somewhere bright and deep Why does her face look down A wisp of heaven opened up. And hide in her lacework? In this bottomless azure, After all, there is nothing to fear In twilight, as spring approached And nothing to lose… The winter storms were weeping, But must I speak? Starry dreams were all about, barely felt. But can I speak?

Timid, dark and deep And what do I say to her, this gentle creature? my heart-strings were weeping That my heart is blossoming? The wind has carried from afar That the snowy wind is blowing? These beautiful songs from you. That in my room it is bright and warm?

Petersburg Song Those born in these god-forsaken times I walk, I wander, downcast, Cannot remember the way. Alone in my burrow. Us? Children of the years of terror in ? The frowning organ grinder is coming We can forget nothing. To the courtyard, crying out. Years of disintegrating fire! About that free life Is there madness in you? or hope? that is not to be mine Since the days of war? Days of freedom? About the wind in the fields The blood red fire is reflected in our faces. And the spring to come, in the courtyard. Are we mute? The cacaphony of alarms But to me-what does it matter? Has sealed our lips. I wander alone. Forgotten. Hearts, once full of passion, And the candle is guttering out, Now are doomed to emptiness. And the pendulum is ticking. Let the shrieking ravens Only one hope, only one Soar over our deathbeds,- There, at her window Those worthier than we, O God, O God, Her clothes are bright Will behold your kingdom! She will come to me.

My face is paler Than these white walls… Always I am overcome with shyness when she approaches

Why does she come Speak with me? Why does she thread her needle With these merry colors? Holy Madonna in the city You pass without a smile Lowering your eyes, And in the darkness above the cathedral Shine the golden domes.

How your face looks like The holy Madonnas of eventide Lowering their eyes disappearing into the darkness…

But with you goes a curly-haired little boy A gentle boy in a white cap You lead him by the hand You don’t let him fall behind.

I stand in the shadow of the doorway Where the sharp wind blows My eyes strain and are Clouded with tears.

I want to spring up and exclaim “Oh Lady, Why have you brought This Child to my dark city”.

But my tongue is powerless to cry out You pass. After you are gone, Above your sacred footprints The blue darkness sleeps.

And again I watch, remembering, Your downcast eyes, How your child with the white cap Smiled up at you.

Translations by Ben Flanders and Alina Kotliar ABOUT TODAY’S PERFORMANCE

Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff (1873-1942) piano virtuoso, and conductor, and the poet Alex- ander Alexandrovich Blok (1880-1921) grew up in comfortable aristocratic homes in the last decades of the . Their reactions to the turbulent times and the trajectory of their lives were very different. When the came, Rachmaninoff emigrated and settled in New York City in 1918. The song “The Dream” written in 1893 after a text by Heine was tragically prophetic.

I had such a homeland; It was so beautiful! There the spruce swayed above me... But it was a dream! A family of lively friends a All around Calling out words of love to me… But it was a dream!

The composer of over seventy one songs before he left his homeland never again combined his music and his native language in song, his last songs were written in 1916.

Alexander Blok had a very different view of the revolution from Rachmaninoff’s. He saw injustice and de- generacy all around him and welcomed the revolution as a cleansing fire that would sweep away the dross of humanity and create a better world. He refused to emigrate and abandon his homeland, but soon became disillusioned with the revolution. His earlier poems like “The Weathercock” were filled with hope for a better future, but by 1914 when he wrote “A Voice from the Chorus” and “Those born in these God-forsaken Times” he felt that a better world would not come in his lifetime. In his last years he wrote almost no poetry, explaining to his friend and biographer Kornei Chukovsky that, “All sounds have ceased, can’t you hear the silence?” For a poet as inherently musical as Blok it was the death of his creativity. The revolution silenced his muse and he died soon after in 1921.

Georgy Vasilyevich Sviridov (1915-1998) wrote over 150 songs over the course of his long successful life as a composer. “Petersburg” was his last big song cycle composed and revised over many years from as early as 1980 until 1995 when it was premiered by the great Russian baritone Dmitry Hvorostovsky. Composed of nine poems of Alexander Blok, “Petersburg” seems to be almost a biography, or a life, of the poet. The poems Sviridov selected were written between 1901, (just two years before Blok’s marriage in 1903) and 1914: what he called in song 8 the “years of disintegrating fire”, writing of “the cries of the ravens soaring over our deathbeds.” But even that song ends looking towards the future, “those more worthy than we will behold your kingdom” and in song 9, a sort of epilogue, and a hope for the future, the poet watches as an innocent child is led by his sorrowful mother through the dark city of Petersburg, and after she passes, he sees their footprints in the snow, the slumbering blue night, and remembers how the little boy glanced up at his moth- er, and smiled. ABOUT THE PERFORMERS

Baritone Ben Flanders is the founder and Artistic Director of Slavic Voic- es, as well as the workshop for singers, conductors, and pianists “Slavic Voices at Big Blue”. An Alexander teacher and former professional horn player, Mr. Flanders has been a member of Cincinnati’s Vocal Art Ensem- ble since 2013 and has appeared as a soloist with the Cincinnati Fusion Ensemble, Collegium Cincinnati, the Bach Ensemble of St. Thomas and other groups in the Cincinnati area. Mr. Flanders has performed or cov- ered roles for Dayton , Concert Nova, Queen City Opera, Nanoworks Opera, and others as well as performing as a chorister with the Cincin- nati and Dayton . He has performed as a recitalist in the US and Ukraine and i s committed to bringing people together through music and poetry in the languages of eastern and central Europe.

Elena Kholodova is an internationally recognized collaborative pianist and vocal coach. Menton’s French magazine called her “the brilliant Rus- sian pianist, who impressed the audience with the beauty of the sound and amazing technique”.

Elena received DMA in Solo Performance from Voronezh State Acade- my of Arts (Russia) and an Artist Diploma in Opera Coaching from the College-Conservatory of Music University of Cincinnati (USA). Elena Kholodova is a winner of prestigious competitions such as the V.Krainev Competition (Ukraine) and New Names Scholarship awards, Semi-Finalist of Prokofiev’s competition (St.Petersburg, Russia). Also, she earned the title “The Best Accompanist” from several international vocal competi- tions. She has appeared as a collaborative artist in a substantial num- ber of festivals, competitions, master-classes, and recitals in Russia, France, Finland, Germany, Norway, Great Britain, and the USA.

She has been engaged with Festival of Music in Menton, Mikkeli Festival of Music, St.Petersburg Palaces’ Festival, Japan International Festival, White Night Festival, and opera productions at the Mariinskiy Theater, Cincinnati Opera, Atlanta Opera, Sarasota Opera, “Opera Fusion: New Works” Work- shops, Concert: Nova Series, Not So Classical, Constella Festival and many others.