Prokofiev £3 Shostakovich Tchaikovsky PROGRAMME MICHAEL FOYLE VIOLIN MIHAI RITIVOIU PIANO MICHAEL COLLINS CONDUCTOR WEDNESDAY ENGLISH 16TH MAY CHAMBER 7.30PM ORCHESTRA CADOGAN HALL Programme welcome Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major Welcome to the Cadogan Chekhov or Tolstoy in our Hall for what I am sure theatres or an exhibition will be a thrilling evening, such as that which has combining one of the just finished at the Royal Interval world’s great chamber Academy. We celebrate orchestras with two brilliant this amidst the turmoil young soloists and the of international relations. Tchaikovsky well-established conductor/ clarinettist Michael Collins. Thank you to the several Symphony No. 4 in F minor groups who are supporting We are celebrating three this event – not least the ‘debuts’ this evening. International Business Mihai Ritivoiu piano Michael has been a soloist and Diplomatic Exchange Michael Foyle violin with the English Chamber (IBDE) whose advisory Orchestra and tonight board I have the privilege Michael Collins conductor conducts them for the to chair, and the first time. And CMF artists, City Music Foundation. violinist Michael Foyle English Chamber Orchestra and pianist Mihai Ritivoiu May I also express our Sir Roger Gifford play with the ECO for the grateful thanks to an English Chamber Orchestra first time in their rapidly anonymous donor and Music Society developing careers. and the members of Founder, City Music Foundation Winckworth Sherwood LLP The music tonight reflects for their assistance in the the enormous contribution conception and promotion made by Russian arts to of this event. London’s rich and varied cultural life. Indeed, there probably isn’t an evening of the week throughout the year when there isn’t Rachmaninov or Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev being played in a London concert hall somewhere, Prokofiev Sergei Prokofiev (1891 – 1953) Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19 Premiere: 18th October 1923 (Paris) Bolshevik (1920) by Boris Kustodiev War and Revolution Premiere postponed Deserting the Motherland 1917 was arguably the most During the inter-revolutionary By May 1918, Prokofiev had decided his First Violin Concerto A brief moment of pizzicato turbulent year in Russian history. summer, Prokofiev had withdrawn to get out. He later admitted (conducted by Koussevitzky) repose leads to further agitated War with Imperial Germany to the countryside outside that, “I had not the slightest idea shared the stage with Stravinsky’s music, volleys of octaves and brought huge losses at the front Petrograd — “all alone, reading of the scope and significance of Octet for Wind Instruments veracious plucking, but the (around 2 million killed) and sky- Kant and working a great dealing”. the October Revolution. It never (conducted by the composer). movement eventually relents, high inflation and food shortages But war and revolution soon came occurred to me that like any other According to Prokofiev, “the critics the soloist left singing all alone. at home, breeding mutiny and knocking at Prokofiev’s door. “Our citizen I might be of use to it. were divided, [and] some of them The opening tune soon creeps popular demonstrations. The western front had collapsed; it And hence the idea of going to commented not without malice on back into view, first on the flute February Revolution forced Tsar was rumoured that Petrograd was America took root in my mind. its ’Mendelssohnisms’”. Composer and then the clarinet, adorned Nicholas II to abdicate leading in danger of being taken by the I believed that Russia had no George Auric (one of Les Six) called with a shimmering descant from Sergei Prokofiev in 1918 to the formation of a provisional Germans. My mother, who was use for music at the moment.” it a “concerto for dilettantes”, the soloist – whispering in the government, which in turn was taking a cure in the Caucasus, The Communist Party would of “drowned, in a word, by an stratosphere. What was previously toppled by the October Revolution, decided to remain there for the course commandeer music as orchestral picturesqueness that is ‘dreaming’ is rendered distant and replaced by a Bolshevik-led autumn and I went down to a vital part of its propaganda quite artificial.” We learn from later at times, haunting. government headed by join her, first sending a suitcase machine, but even before leaving, interviews, that Stravinsky rather Vladimir Lenin. with my manuscripts to Moscow, Prokofiev was given a foretaste of liked it. Scherzo: a romp of puckish sliding where it was deposited in the its artistic meddling on meeting and screeching (à la Psycho), Reflecting on the February vaults of the Gutheil publishing Anatoly Lunacharsky, the People’s it’s this middle movement Revolution in his autobiography, house.” Now nearly 1500 miles Commissar for Education. “You which may explain the critics’ Sergei Prokofiev writes, “I and away from the action, eventual are a revolutionary in music”, A ‘lyrical’ concerto accusation of “Mendelssohnisms”. those I associated with welcomed news of the October Revolution Lunacharsky told Prokofiev, “we are Its jaunty tunes and militaryesque it with open arms. I was in the was on the one hand, “exciting, revolutionaries in life. We ought to percussion seem to pre-empt streets of Petrograd [now St but so contradictory that it was work together.” Prokofiev’sViolin Concerto No. 1 is Shostakovich’s signature Petersburg] while the fighting was impossible to make out what was a lyrical piece, composed with an acerbic wit. going on, hiding behind house happening.” With the planned During his American sojourn, unusual inside-out design of two corners when the shooting came premiere of the Concerto fast Prokofiev gave concerto slower movements (Andantino Allegro moderato: with its too close.” However, despite the approaching, Prokofiev was set performances in New York and, & Allegro Moderato) around a searing changes of harmonic unrest, 1917 was a bumper year for to return to Petrograd, but soon after making connections in central Scherzo. Prokofiev was direction, the finale returns to the the young Prokofiev. He composed realised that, “it was madness to Chicago, he was commissioned to known in Paris for his more edgy ‘dreaming’ of the first movement, the First Symphony (‘Classical’), think of travelling. A train with write his opera, The Love for Three compositions, like the ballet as well as harking back to the the 3rd & 4th Piano Sonatas, smashed windows arrived and a Oranges. Travelling onwards to Chout and the Scythian Suite, but playfulness of the Scherzo. As the began the 3rd Piano Concerto, panic-stricken bourgeois crowd Paris in April 1920, he played the reflecting on his musical language movement appears to peter out, and completed his First Violin poured out.” It wasn’t until October vocal score to Sergei Diaghilev and in his autobiography, Prokofiev an unexpected flurry of scales from Concerto. The Violin Concerto No. 1923 that the Concerto first met an his star composer, Igor Stravinsky. noted that the “lyrical” was one the soloist injects it with a renewed 1 was originally planned (in 1915) audience and, even then, it was in However, Stravinsky refused to of the five strands in his musical energy. Supported by weighty as a small concertino work, but Paris in the company of two other listen to anything more than the language. tuba and double bass grounding, time spent trying to impress the renowned Russian exiles: Serge first act and an argument quickly a much-anticipated feeling great ballet impresario Sergei Koussevitzky and Igor Stravinsky. ensued – according to Prokofiev, Andantino: without introduction, of hope is found, leading to a Diaghilev prevented Prokofiev the two “almost came to blows the soloist leads the opening palpable sense of homecoming from completing it. Returning to and were separated only with movement — marked sognando as the opening sognando tune the “meditative opening” in 1917, it difficulty”. After a short stay in (‘dreaming’) — spinning a returns, twinkling, before drifting grew into a three-movement work Bavaria (1922), Prokofiev was back wandering melody, conversing off into the distance. with the premiere intended for in Paris in 1923, where despite with solo woodwinds before 4 November of that year. previous differences, growing anxious and impish. (c) Philip Barrett Shostakovich Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975) Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich and Aram Khachaturian in 1945 Premiere: 10th May 1957 (Moscow) on the morning of the planned political superiority whilst at orchestra, before wriggling free performance; it would lie silent the same time purging Western into an unaccompanied cadenza, until 1961. However, his official influences. After attacks on writers whose angular counterpoint standing was miraculously and the closure of The State and hand-crossings were surely The Death of Stalin rehabilitated in 1937 with the Museum of Modern Western intended as an opportunity for premiere of his somewhat Art, in 1948 Zhadnov turned his Maxim to show off. The cadenza “forced” 5th Symphony. attention to music, blacklisting gives way to a brief return of At the 20th Congress of the So there was hope, but and criticising Shostakovich — as the opening tune, concluding Communist Party in February Shostakovich was by no means During WW2, Shostakovich well as Prokofiev and Khachaturian an unashamedly jolly opening 1956, Stalin’s successor, Nikita out of the woods. Writing to his drew closer to the Soviet bosom. — for “being formal in art” and for movement. Khrushchev, denounced the late long-term correspondent, Isaak After signing a non-aggression showing “too much respect for dictator. Speaking for over four Glikman, in September 1958 he pact with Nazi Germany, Soviet Western values.” The accusation of Andante: forlorn strings introduce hours, Khrushchev condemned admitted: “In my spare time […] forces soon invaded Finland and ‘formalism’ referred to art written the concerto’s standard bearer, Stalin for his “Cult of Personality” I think about Lady Macbeth and Shostakovich was commissioned purely for art’s sake, as opposed the wistful slow movement.