Boris Alexandrovich!

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“Dear Boris Alexandrovich!

The Boris Tchaikovsky Society, a public non-profit organization, was Boris founded in Moscow in late 2002 and registered in 2003. Among the founders and members of the Society are composers, including pupils of Boris Tchaikovsky, musicologists and musical enthusiasts. The composer’s TCHAIKOVSKY widow, Yanina-Irena Iossifovna Moshinskaya, is also a founder of the (1925-1996) Society. The honorary members of the Society include Rudolf Barshai, Victor Pikaizen, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Edward Serov, and Karen Khachaturian. The activities of the Society are supported by Mstislav Symphony No. 1 32:17 Rostropovich, Galina Vishnevskaya, Valentin Berlinsky, Andrei Eshpai, Roman Ledenyov, Andrei Golovin, Valery Kikta and Alexander Rudin. The 1 Moderato 10:17 Society is open to foreign members and boasts a number of members from 2 Allegro marcato 5:54 Brazil, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, the United States and Great Britain. Among the Society’s goals are the study of Tchaikovsky’s 3 Largo 7:50 legacy, the dissemination of his music and the support of events connected 4 Allegretto 8:16 with his music. The Society has assisted in issues of several CDs on different labels, including world première recordings; assisted in the preparation of a Suite: The Murmuring Forest 13:26 Chamber Music Festival devoted to the music of Boris Tchaikovsky (the first in the world) in De Rode Pomp Hall, Ghent (Belgium, 2004), 5 I. Moderato 3:09 performances of orchestral and chamber works in the United Kingdom, 6 France, Denmark, Germany, Japan, and some other events. The Society II. Moderato 1:35 welcomes everyone who admires the music of this great Russian composer. 7 III. Allegro 2:19 It will be delighted to answer any inquiries and to send scores. 8 IV. Molto vivace 2:03 9 V. Andante 4:20 Website: www.bt_ms.da.ru

Suite: After the Ball 16:54 These recordings were organized by The Boris Tchaikovsky Society (Russia) 0 I. Introduction 1:57 and made possible owing to generous support from Haden Freeman Ltd, U.K., ! II. Waltz 1:51 and a grant from The Russian Performing Arts Foundation @ III. Reminiscence* 2:32 (“Fond Russkoe Ispolnitelskoe Iskusstvo”) # IV. Mazurka 3:12 $ V. At Home* 2:02 % VI. March 4:17 ^ VII. Conclusion 1:03 The Boris Tchaikovsky Society acknowledges with thanks Nigel Hirst (Manchester), *with Lolita Angert, Piano Maria Soboleva (Moscow), Vladimir Novozhilov (Moscow), The Library of the Russian State Musical Centre of Radio & TV, and the Society’s members in Switzerland and Russia for their kind support and assistance. 8.570195 27 8.570195 570195 bk Tchaikovsky US 13/11/06 08:24 Page 6

Saratov Conservatory Symphony Orchestra Boris Tchaikovsky (1925-1996) Symphony No. 1 • Suite: The Murmuring Forest • Suite: After the Ball The Saratov Conservatory Symphony Orchestra was created just after the Conservatory was opened, in 1912. It is the first Russian provincial conservatory and the third in Russia, after St Petersburg and Moscow. From 1935 the In a career that spanned the last half of the twentieth of thematic identity, a single-movement Violin Concerto Conservatory took the name of Leonid Sobinov, the famous Russian tenor. Following tradition, the artistic director Century, the composer Boris Tchaikovsky towered high (1969) that shuns the time-honoured musical practice of and chief conductor of the orchestra was usually also the artistic director and chief conductor of the Saratov among his Soviet contemporaries. His work received repetition, and a five-movement Piano Concerto (1971) Philharmonic Orchestra. Chief conductors of the Saratov Conservatory Symphony Orchestra have included such unalloyed praise from the most prominent musical figures, all of whose elements derive from primitive rhythmic prominent musicians as Nathan Faktorovich, Martyn Nersesyan, and Yuri Aronovich. For many years Roman Shostakovich, Rostropovich, Kondrashin, Barshai, and patterns. His orchestral compositions, such as his Theme Matsov worked with the orchestra, which has also performed under the baton of such famous conductors as Fedoseyev, and was represented on more than twenty and Eight Variations (1973) and the tone-poems Wind of Mstislav Rostropovich, Karl-Wilhelm Brandt, Konstantin Saradzhev, Nisson Shkarovsky, Gennady Provatorov, and Melodiya LPs, few of which circulated outside the Soviet Siberia and Juvenile (both of 1984), reveal a wealth of Yuri Kochnev. Union. In the West, however, where musical tastes lyrical invention. His symphonies embrace an ever- favoured the avant garde, his music was largely expanding quest for innovation within traditional forms. Edward Serov overlooked. That climate of opinion has been rapidly To briefly summarise, in the First Symphony (1947) changing. As more of his work is recorded on CD, Boris matters of thematic organization receive individual Edward Serov, People’s Artist of Russia, is one of the leading Russian orchestral conductors of the modern era. He Tchaikovsky is becoming widely recognised as one of the treatment; the Second Symphony (1967) incorporates was born in 1937 in Moscow. At the age of six, he began taking violin and piano lessons. He graduated from the most important Russian composers of our time. musical quotations from the classics as points of structural Moscow Conservatory in 1958. Three years later he completed his studies at the Kiev Conservatory and continued As both standard-bearer and innovator, Tchaikovsky departure; the Third Symphony, “Sebastopol”, (1980) is his conducting and composition studies in Leningrad (St Petersburg), where he immediately became assistant to the arguably did more to enrich the tradition of Russian conceived as a single monumental movement; and his great Evgeny Mravinsky in the conducting class of the Conservatory and with the famous Leningrad Philharmonic instrumental music than anyone else of his generation. He Symphony with Harp (1993) explores a unique set of Orchestra (where he conducted during 1962-1968, and later during 1985-1990). Prize-Winner of the First Herbert was trained at the Moscow Conservatory during the 1940s timbral possibilities. von Karajan Conducting Competition, founder of two major symphony orchestras in Russia, the Volgograd under Vissarion Shebalin, Shostakovich, and Nikolay The present disc draws upon Tchaikovsky’s earliest Philharmonic and Ulyanovsk Philharmonic, for many years Chief Conductor of the St Petersburg Chamber Myaskovsky. His works from the 1950s, such as the period with three works written between 1947 and 1953, Orchestra (1974-1985), as well as the Odense Symphony Orchestra (1991-1996), and Saratov Philharmonic celebrated Sinfonietta for Strings (1953), show that he was around the time of his graduation from the Moscow Orchestra (1995-2003), he is a musician of the highest achievement. He has recorded some fifty LPs and thirty CDs a traditionalist with forward-looking sensibilities. An Conservatory in 1949. The earliest of these is the First for various Western and Russian labels, and has more than a thousand orchestral works in his repertoire. Edward extensive revamping of his style in the 1960s, coincident Symphony, whose originality so impressed Shostakovich Serov has conducted in most European countries, in the United States, Canada, and Japan. He has been the artistic with the freer creative environment then emerging in the that he brought the work to the attention of the noted director of musical festivals taking place in Volgograd. In 2006 he was awarded the Order for Services to the Soviet Union, led his music in fresh directions. Unlike the conductor Evgeny Mravinsky, who readily agreed to Homeland, Russia’s highest honour. He collaborated for many years with Boris Tchaikovsky, entrusted with the alienating rhetoric and the host of “isms” adopted by many programme it, but what should have been an auspicious premières of his Six Etudes for Strings and Organ, Signs of the Zodiac, and Four Preludes for Chamber Orchestra. of his contemporaries, Tchaikovsky’s mature style première by a promising young composer never maintained strong connections with its Russian roots. materialised. Stalin’s notorious campaign against Soviet Kirill Ershov With its brittle lyricism, pronounced rhythmic features, composers in 1948 brought virtually all musical creativity and an expanded harmonic palette that never completely to a halt. Specifically targeted was Shostakovich, whose Kirill Ershov is a conductor of the new generation. He was born in 1970 and after graduating from the Gnesin abandons tonality, the new style allowed him to take on a students, including Tchaikovsky, were branded as Musical College in Moscow, completed studies in 1994 at the Saratov Conservatory in the classes of balalaika and broad and at times exotic array of formal challenges. The “contaminated”. The first performance of the Symphony, conducting. In 1992 he became laureate of Russian Competition for folk-instrument performers. During 1999-2001 result was a highly innovative, richly expressive body of as happened with a number of contemporaneous works by he took a post-graduate conducting course at the Saratov Conservatory. Currently he is Dean of this Conservatory, work that appealed to a wide concert-going public. Shostakovich, was tabled. Tchaikovsky’s symphony was and works with the Conservatory Symphony Orchestra and Folk-Instruments Orchestra. Kirill Ershov has also Tchaikovsky’s principal works include four given its première to much acclaim on 7th February 1962 conducted the Musica Viva Chamber Orchestra, and with the Symphony Orchestra of P.I. Tchaikovsky Foundation. symphonies, four concertos, various other works for with Kirill Kondrashin leading the Moscow Philharmonic Kirill Ershov was personally acquainted with Boris Tchaikovsky, and after the composer’s sudden death became the orchestra, a chamber symphony, six string quartets, and a Orchestra. This, the first recording of the Symphony, first performer (in 1998, together with pianist Olga Solovieva) of Two pieces for balalaika and piano. Later he quantity of other chamber music. If the list seems short, appears nearly sixty years after its composition. arranged Boris Tchaikovsky’s Sinfonietta for folk-instruments, and performed it with the Saratov Conservatory the works themselves boast an engaging variety of formal It is not hard to see why Tchaikovsky’s First Folk-Instruments Orchestra. explorations. His most daring compositions include a Symphony made such a strong impression on bravura Cello Concerto (1964) that challenges the notion Shostakovich. As ambitious in emotional scope as it is in 8.570195 63 8.570195 570195 bk Tchaikovsky US 13/11/06 08:24 Page 4

its overall design, the work already finds the composer Tchaikovsky’s inexhaustible powers of invention are and Oxana by getting Roman dead drunk and dispatching events is heard in the final Andante with a reprise of the thinking globally in terms of musical architecture. While again attested to in the theme and set of variations of the him and Opanas to the forest. After a bout of heavy opening clarinet theme over coruscating string figures. the influence of Shostakovich is evident in its brilliant final Allegretto. The theme, introduced by the solo drinking Opanas sings a strangely beautiful song whose Leo Tolstoy’s (1828-1910) After the Ball (1903) is orchestration, Tchaikovsky’s symphony, like clarinet, consists of four distinct phrases that offer plenty lyrics harbour ominous forebodings for the squire. But another tale within a tale in which the protagonist, Ivan Shostakovich’s own first attempt at the form, strongly of lyrical groundwork: first a held note that skips up an Opanas, on the sly, warns Roman about the squire’s Vasilyevich, recalls an evening in his youth at a grand ball proclaims its own stylistic ground. octave; then two utterances of the motto; a descending insidious plot. The grandfather then recounts the mutinous dancing with the beautiful Varinka. His infatuation with The depth and richness of Tchaikovsky’s musical sequence of triplets; and finally a series of three note actions of Roman and Opanas, whereby they drag the the girl is suddenly cooled when on his way home he thinking are evident in the opening Moderato. The figures that close the phrase. The composer’s high-spirited squire and his loyal huntsman into the storm-laden forest witnesses Varinka’s father, a colonel, commanding his movement is cast in sonata form and generously supplies variations take the idea through its colourful paces while and shoot them both dead. Korolenko’s novel begins with men to inflict a savage punishment upon a Tartar, who is no less than half a dozen themes in its exposition. A offering genuine symphonic development. The treatment the words “…A perpetual murmur filled these woods — mercilessly beaten through the ranks for his attempt to majestic theme with major-minor colorations opens the leads to a number of passages of heightened drama – steady, continuous, like the echo of distant chiming, desert. Tchaikovsky’s music for the radio play consists of work, followed by a second phrase, rising and falling including a fugal variation and a passage with Spanish- serene and faint, like the crooning of a song, like a vague a seven-part suite. Prominent among the dances is an scalewise, introducing a “motto”, that will establish itself, style trumpet solos – before the quiet conclusion of the remembrance of the past…” Tchaikovsky’s suite opens especially beautiful Waltz that well could have been in various guises, as a signal presence throughout this final variation, again led off by the solo clarinet. with a sumptuous evocation of wind and rustling leaves in written by the earlier (and unrelated) Tchaikovsky. In the work, providing a link within and across each of its four Tchaikovsky wrote incidental music for nearly three low strings as the clarinet introduces a darkly stirring story the Tartar’s punishment takes place as the indifferent movements. A more extended second thematic group dozen films and more than two dozen plays, most of the theme that gradually rises in intensity. The trumpet fanfare strains of a fife and drum are heard. Tchaikovsky portrays starts with a repeated three-note figure that emerges latter being produced for radio broadcast. Once asked and the chordal strumming of Cossack Opanas’s strange the grotesque contrast in the Mazurka with a dash of forcefully in the woodwinds. This idea is expanded and about his works in these genres, he recalled with particular song are portrayed in the third part, Allegro. In the Molto bitonality. He sets a march tune in C major for piccolo and leads to a number of other themes: another three-note fondness the music he wrote to Andersen’s Fairy Tales, vivace that follows, the opening theme returns with more snare drum against an ominous theme in the G Phrygian figure descending stepwise with timpani punctuation; and to the radio dramas The Murmuring Forest (1953) and agitated accompaniment, as thunderous strokes on the mode in the lower strings. The effect is subtle and striking. thematic material in dotted rhythm that echoes the first After the Ball (1952). It therefore must have been a great bass drum suggest the lightning bolts that punctuate the two notes — short-long — of the opening theme of the disappointment to Tchaikovsky when his score to The shots of the double execution. A summary of the dramatic Louis Blois first group; and later a short five-note tattoo, a time- Murmuring Forest went missing. Thanks to the efforts of compressed version of the motto theme. The clarity and the Boris Tchaikovsky Society, however, the score was at individual character of each of these ideas belies the subtle last found in 2003 in the archives of the Moscow Radio ties that unite them and the movement into an organic Library. Posthumously fulfilling the composer’s Volgograd Philharmonic Orchestra whole. A remarkable synthesis follows in the development intentions, the concert suite heard on this disc was section where this plethora of themes is knit together with arranged. The Volgograd Philharmonic Orchestra was established in 1987, founded by its artistic director and Chief gripping logic and cumulative drama. The recapitulation The Murmuring Forest is a dramatization of a novel Conductor, Edward Serov. The orchestra has since built up a repertoire of nearly five hundred works of more than begins with a climactic restatement of the opening theme of the same name by Vladimir Korolenko (1853-1921), 160 composers of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, among which are all the symphonies of and the movement ends quietly. The second movement, whose sympathies for the downtrodden infuse all his Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and nearly all the orchestral music of Tchaikovsky, together with the works of Mahler, Allegro marcato, comprises a fantastic Russian Scherzo. writing. Deep in the woods a grandfather tells the story of Rachmaninov, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin, and Bruckner. A considerable part of the Here three rhythmically charged themes gleefully parley his surrogate father, Roman, a forest-dweller from birth, repertoire is music of modern composers, Berg, Webern, Schoenberg, Hindemith, Messiaen, Bernstein, Barber, with each other on either side of a broadly lyrical central who lived at the mercy of a cruel despotic squire. After Tischenko (world premières of his Requiem and Seventh Symphony), Sviridov, and Boris Tchaikovsky. A number of section scored for strings. Notice in the outer sections the receiving brutal floggings from the squire, Roman works by these and other composers were performed in Russia for the first time. The orchestra has toured in appearances of the motto theme in the respective solos for unwillingly concedes to marrying Oxana, a girl who has Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Spain, France, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, and Belgium, oboe, clarinet, and piccolo. In the Largo, cast in ABAB captured the heart of the noble Cossack Opanas, the with repeated tours in some of these countries. Guest conductors have included Timur Mynbaev, Sergei Skripka, form, the motto appears everywhere, as the initial flourish squire’s steward. Roman and Oxana settle in and make a Algirdas Paulavicius, Yuri Kochnev, Feodor Gluschenko, Werner Stiefel, Taavo Virkhaus, Dwight Oltman, Lin (in inverted form) and as the ever-present countermelody life for themselves. After the passage of time the squire, Tao, Fernando Raucci, Onni Kelo, Gustavo Plis-Sterenberg, Emmanuel Siffert, and Dirk Brosse. Distinguished to the themes in both A and B sections. When the A accompanied by his loyal huntsman and the lovelorn soloists include Alexei Nasedkin, Nikolai Petrov, Naum Shtarkman, Victor Pikaizen, Irina Bochkova, Victoria section returns, a climactic statement of the first theme on Opanas, returns to the Roman household. The squire’s Yagling, Natalia Shakhovskaya, and Kim Cook, among many others. The orchestra has recorded several CDs for solo French horn leads to a short reprise of the tender visit, which he announces with his own trumpet fanfare, is different labels and is a founder of the traditional Simfonia International Competition for Young Musicians, and of second theme before the movement closes quietly. not an innocent one. He lustfully plans to seclude himself several regional musical competitions. 8.570195 45 8.570195 570195 bk Tchaikovsky US 13/11/06 08:24 Page 4

“Dear Boris Alexandrovich!

Do not be vexed with the result of the exam. When I come back to Moscow, I will tell you the details of the discussion that ensued after listening Boris to your Symphony. There were interesting thoughts from some members of the examining board. As TCHAIKOVSKY for me, I am vexed with the results of the exam not less, but even more than you. Be steadfast and be the knight of the art. I believe in your Symphony No. 1 great composer’s talent. All that transpired convinced me even more that I am right... The Murmuring Forest Yours, After the Ball Dmitry Shostakovich” Volgograd Philharmonic Orchestra Letter from Dmitry Shostakovich to Boris Tchaikovsky (1947) after the Edward Serov exam where his First Symphony was displayed. At the threshold to 1948 the work did not receive the Saratov Conservatory highest grade from the examining board but made a profound Symphony Orchestra impression on Shostakovich. Kirill Ershov 8.570195 8 NAXOS NAXOS At one time largely overlooked in the West, Boris Tchaikovsky is now becoming widely recognised as one of the most important Russian composers of our time. His First Symphony, written in 1947, made a profound impression on Shostakovich, but owing to Stalin’s campaign against dissident Soviet composers it was only premièred in 1962, fifteen years after it had been written. It appears here in its first recording. The Murmuring Forest is a dramatisation of a novel by Vladimir Korolenko (1853- 8.570195 BORIS TCHAIKOVSKY: BORIS TCHAIKOVSKY: 1921) about a forest-dweller who lived at the mercy of a cruel despotic squire. Employing a rich DDD orchestral palette, its score was thought lost for years until, thanks to the efforts of The Boris Tchaikovsky Society, it was rediscovered. After the Ball was likewise inspired by a literary work, a Playing Time story by Tolstoy, which Tchaikovsky realised as a seven-part dance suite. It includes an especially beautiful Waltz that could have been written by the earlier (and unrelated) Tchaikovsky. 62:38 Boris TCHAIKOVSKY (1925-1996) 1-4 Symphony No. 1 (1947) 1 32:17 Symphony No. 1 • Suites Symphony No. 1 • Suites 5-9 Suite: The Murmuring Forest (1953) 2 13:26 www.naxos.com Made in Canada Booklet notes in English 3 0-^ Suite: After the Ball (1952) 16:54 &

Volgograd Philharmonic Orchestra 1 • Edward Serov 1 2007 Naxos Rights International Ltd. Saratov Conservatory Symphony Orchestra 2, 3 • Kirill Ershov 2, 3

A full track list can be found on page 2 of the booklet. Recorded at Volgograd Central Concert Hall, Russia, from 17th to 20th June, 2006 (tracks 1-4), and at Great Hall, Saratov Conservatoire, Russia, on 15th January, 2006 (tracks 5-9), and on 13th June, 2006 (tracks 10-16) All recordings produced by Igor Prokhorov and Pyotr Klimov, with Anatoly Skripaj (tracks 5-16)

8.570195 Sound engineer and editor: Ilya Dontsov (tracks 1-9); Maria Lenarskaya (tracks 10-16) 8.570195 Publisher: The Boris Tchaikovsky Society • Booklet Notes: Louis Blois Cover photograph: colourisation by Ron Hoares from a black and white photograph of Boris Tchaikovsky from the composer’s private archive