UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY in association with Manufacturers Bank STATE SYMPHONIC KAPELLE OF MOSCOW (formerly the Soviet Philharmonic) GENNADY ROZHDESTVENSKY Music Director and Conductor VICTORIA POSTNIKOVA, Pianist Saturday Evening, February 8, 1992, at 8:00 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, Michigan The University Musical Society is grateful to Manufacturers Bank for a generous grant supporting this evening's concert. The box office in the outer lobby is open during intermission for tickets to upcoming concerts. Twenty-first Concert of the 113th Season 113th Annual Choral Union Series PROGRAM Russian Easter Festival Overture, Op. 36 ......... Rimsky-Korsakov Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 .......... Rachmaninoff Allegro ma non tanto Intermezzo: Adagio Finale: Alia breve Viktoria Postnikova, Pianist INTERMISSION Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G major, Op. 55 .......... Tchaikovsky Elegie Valse melancolique Scherzo Theme and Variations The pre-concert carillon recital was performed by Bram van Leer, U-M Professor of Aerospace Engineering. Viktoria Postnikova plays the Steinway piano available through Hammell Music, Inc. Livonia. The State Symphonic Kapelle is represented by Columbia Artists Management Inc., New York City. Russian Easter Festival Overture, Sheherazade, Op. 35. In his autobiography, My Musical Life, the composer said that these Op. 36 two works, along with the Capriccio espagnoie, NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844-1908) Op. 34, written the previous year, "close a imsky-Korsakov came from a period of my work, at the end of which my family of distinguished military orchestration had attained a considerable and naval figures, so it is not degree of virtuosity and warm sonority with­ strange that in his youth he de­ out Wagnerian influence, limiting myself to cided on a career as a naval the normally constituted orchestra used by officer.R Both of his grandmothers, however, Glinka." These three works were, in fact, his were of humble origins, one being a peasant last important strictly orchestral composi­ and the other a priest's daughter. The com­ tions; after these, in his last twenty years he poser claimed to have inherited from them only wrote occasional suites based on the his love for folk songs and for religious various operas that occupied his creativity. ceremonies, both of which are aspects that He also went on to explain in his autobiog­ figure highly in much of his music. After raphy that in order to fully appreciate his three years in the Russian Navy, Rimsky- Opus 36 overture, it was necessary to have Korsakov became, in his own words, "an attended the Russian Easter morning service officer-dilettante, who sometimes enjoyed at least once, and in a cathedral thronged playing or listening to music." It was only with people from every walk of life, with through the influence and guidance of his several priests conducting the cathedral ser­ friend, the composer Mily Balakirev, that the vice. Failure to having been a witness to such young Rimsky-Korsakov dedicated himself to a religious ceremony, however, does not becoming a "serious" composer. preclude the listener from reveling in Rimsky- Following the style established by Korsakov's felicitous flow of ideas and sump­ Mikhail Glinka, Balakirev and Rimsky- tuous orchestration. Korsakov united in their aim with composers The composer's analysis of his overture Alexander Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky, and helps us to understand the poetic content of Cesar Cui to create a nationalist school of this music: "The overture combines reminis­ Russian music. This group of composers, with cences of the ancient prophecy, of the gospel Balakirev as the mentor of the other four narrative and also a general picture of the younger composers, was known as "The Easter service with its pagan merrymaking. Five," and later along with Glinka and "The rather slow introduction of the Alexander Dargom'izhsky became known theme of 'Let God Arise!' alternating with as Moguchaya kuchka ("The Mighty the ecclesiastical theme 'An angel wailed,' Handful") in recognition of their nationalist appeared to me, in its beginning, as it were, efforts to maintain their musical the ancient Isaiah's prophecy concerning the "independence" from the basically Ger­ resurrection of Christ. manic, Western European conservative ap­ "The gloomy colors of the andante proach to composition, of which their lugubre seemed to depict the holy sepulcher contemporary Tchaikovsky and, later, that had shone with ineffable light at the Rachmaninoff were the highest exponents. It moment of the resurrection in the transi­ should be noted that the conservatives were tion to the allegro of the overture. The often influenced by their nationalist counter­ beginning of the allegro, 'Let them also that parts, and, in turn, Rimsky-Korsakov hate Him flee before Him,' led to the holiday "borrowed" at times from the German tradi­ mood of the Greek Orthodox Church service tion and eventually absorbed influences from on Christ's matins; the solemn trumpet voice Wagner. of the Archangel was replaced by a tonal In Czarist Russia, the observance of reproduction of the joyous, almost dancelike Easter included various features that were bell-tolling, alternating now with the con­ pagan in origin. Rimsky-Korsakov was deeply ventional chant of the priest's reading the impressed with the legendary and heathen glad tidings of the Evangel. The obikhod side of the holiday. He wrote his Russian theme, 'Christ is arisen,' which forms a sort Easter Festival Overture, Op. 36, in the of subsidiary part of the overture, appeared summer of 1888, the same period in which amid the trumpet blasts and the bell-tolling, he composed perhaps his most famous work, constituting also a triumphant coda." Rimsky-Korsakov prefaced the orches­ Third. In that time, however, his skills as a tral score with two verses from Psalm 68, "Let composer had been honed, to the point that God Arise, let His enemies be scattered," the procedures holding the Third Piano Con­ etc., and by a reference to the sixteenth certo together go beyond those used in its chapter of St. Mark: the empty tomb of Christ C-minor predecessor. Among Rachman­ is discovered on the morning of the resurrec­ inoff's five compositions for piano and orches­ tion. To these quotations, Rimsky-Korsakov tra the four Concertos and the Rhapsody added the following: "And the joyful tidings on a Theme ofPaganini — the Piano Concerto were spread abroad all over the world, and No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 is unquestionably they who hated Him fled before Him, van­ the finest, as well as one of the most brilliant ishing like smoke. Resurrexit! sing the choirs and difficult in the entire Romantic concerto of the angels in heaven, to the sound of the repertoire. The Opus 30 Concerto is not only Archangels' trumpets and the fluttering of the the most ambitious in terms of the demands wings of the Seraphim. Resurrexit! sing the made on the pianist, but it also is the best priests in the temples, in the midst of clouds structured and orchestrated. In addition, its of incense, by the light of innumerable can­ thematic content and its expert handling of dles, to the chiming of triumphant bells." the same are of the highest order. If the The score bears the composer's dedica­ pianist is required to have impeccable tech­ tion to the memory of his friends Modest nique and a great amount of stamina to Mussorgsky and Alexander Borodin. perform this work, so does the orchestra as well as the conductor need to be extra Piano Concerto No. 3 alert and flexible, not to mention dexterous. Furthermore, there are not many other con­ in D minor, Op. 30 certos where the term "symphonic" could be SERGEI RACHMANINOFF (1873-1943) better applied, in which the solo instrument achmaninoff is remembered and and the orchestra are so thoroughly integrated loved as one of the greatest pia­ as in this work. nists of the twentieth century. Rachmaninoff completed the Piano He was born to an aristocratic Concerto No. 3 in D minor in the summer family and, as a child of nine, of 1909 at his country estate at Ivanovka. The enteredR the St. Petersburg Conservatory. composer himself said that "it was written for Three years later, he transferred to the Con­ America, [but] I had not found much time servatory at Moscow, from which he gradua­ for practicing and was not familiar enough ted with a Gold Medal in 1892. That same with some passages, [so] I took a dumb piano year he started on a long concert tour of on the ship and practiced during the jour­ Russia and appeared in London in 1899 as ney." Rachmaninoff's first American tour composer, conductor, and pianist. He paid began that year on November 4; during this his first visit to the United States in 1909 and tour with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, wrote his Third Piano Concerto for that he was featured as composer, pianist, and occasion. Various inducements to stay failed conductor, leading the orchestra in his own to tempt him, and he returned to live in Second Symphony and tone poem The Isle of Moscow. In 1917, however, the Russian the Dead, and giving numerous recitals of his Revolution drove him abroad, and he was own music. The Third Piano Concerto was never to see his native country again. He premiered on November 28 with the New spent most of the rest of his life in the United York Symphony Orchestra under Walter States and Switzerland and, rather unwill­ Damrosch with the composer at the piano; it ingly, continued to travel widely in Europe was also performed later in the season with and America giving piano recitals. His con­ the New York Philharmonic, conducted by tribution to the piano literature is significant Gustav Mahler.