CHAN 9768 front.qxd 23/8/07 3:40 pm Page 1 CHANDOS CHAN 9768 CHAN 9768 BOOK.qxd 23/8/07 3:48 pm Page 2 Nicolas Nabokov (1903–1978) premiere recording Ode: Méditation sur la majesté de Dieu* 32:41 1 I Introduction. Andante con moto 2:08 2 II Like a grain of sand (Duetto). Andante 1.38 3 III The mouths of wise men tell us. Adagio maestoso – 0:30 4 IV But Nature where are your Laws? Allegro – Andante – Tempo I 3:18 5 V Interlude. Andante 3:44 6 VI O You, whose penetrating gaze. Allegro – Andantino – Tempo I – Alla breve 3:22 7 VII O You, whose penetrating gaze (Air). Andantino 1:48 8 VIII There the dense mist (Bass recitative). Adagio – Allegro 3:48 9 IX Celebration. Largo – Vivo – Andante molto – 3:18 10 X Intermezzo. Andante moderato 3:32 11 Reprise. Largo – Tempo di Andante molto – Meno mosso – 3:04 12 XI Chorale. Lento 0:27 13 XII Finale. Largo 1:32 Programme cover for the premiere of ‘Ode’ in Paris, 1928 3 CHAN 9768 BOOK.qxd 23/8/07 3:48 pm Page 4 Nabokov: Ode and Union Pacific premiere recording Almost twenty-five years after his death in In the mid-1920s Nabokov met Serge Union Pacific 33:48 1978, few will be familiar with the music of Diaghilev while lunching with his mother in a Nicolas Nabokov, cousin of the novelist Russian restaurant in Paris frequented by many 14 [1] [Introduction] – 2:12 Vladimir Nabokov. While the latter’s reputation, of his compatriots. Diaghilev invited Nabokov 15 2 Irish Workmen. [ ] – Lento 2:25 from novels such as Lolita and Pnin, remains to play his music for him and finally 16 Chinese Crew. Andante – Allegretto moderato – strong among younger generations, that of commissioned him to write a ballet for the Andante subito – Presto 5:11 the former fell into oblivion soon after his Ballets Russes. The result was his first major 17 Big Tent (Overture). Andante 2:11 death. During the 1930s, however, Nicolas score, the ballet-oratorio Ode which was 18 The Tramblers. Allegro 2:21 Nabokov was widely known as a fine composed and orchestrated during the years 19 3 Intermezzo. Andante 1:43 composer of successful scores like Ode, 1925–28 and premiered in Paris in 1928. In 20 4 Allegro 1:53 La Vie de Polichinelle and Union Pacific. his second book of memoirs, Bagázh, 21 Shuffles. Lento 2:26 Nicolas Nabokov was born into the Russian Nabokov describes with panache the gentry in 1903, in a small town near Minsk. In rehearsals and staging of Ode and especially 22 Cake Walk 0:56 1918 his family moved to the Crimea, fleeing the way Diaghilev bullied and charmed his 23 Pas de deux. [ ] – Andante 3:54 the revolution, and in 1919 left Russia for good. company to the limit, and thus made Ode a 24 The Start of the Fight. [ ] – Allegro – The young Nabokov, who had begun his studies success in Paris and London; one of his last Andante con moto – Largo – Lento – in composition with Vladimir Rebikov in Yalta, successes before he died in 1929. One day in Allegro subito – Andante con moto 8:31 continued these with Juon and Busoni in 1927 Nabokov visited Diaghilev to play TT 66:39 Stuttgart and Berlin. In 1923 he moved again, through the score of Ode: this time to Paris, where he enrolled at the Diaghilev and I heard steps on the winding Marina Shaguch soprano* Sorbonne and joined the large community of staircase and two diminutive figures surfaced from Russian émigrés which included Prokofiev, below: first, familiar, Walter Nouvel, and behind Alexander Kisselev bass* Stravinsky and Diaghilev. Until 1934 Nabokov him, no less familiar from portraits and photos * Russian State Symphonic Cappella earned a living as a teacher of music, literature but wrapped in shawls and mufflers, Stravinsky’s Residentie Orchestra The Hague and language (he was fluent in French, German head, hidden by a wilted black felt hat… I had Valeri Polyansky and English). Among his friends were poets, known that Stravinsky was small, but I was painters, choreographers, composers, politicians, startled by his size, perhaps because he was so photographers and scientists of every sort. wiry… How gloriously kind and charming 4 5 CHAN 9768 BOOK.qxd 23/8/07 3:48 pm Page 6 Stravinsky was that afternoon… and, God, was I Light’ (1743). The ‘Great Northern Light’ can States, based on a theme by the poet orchestration. Union Pacific was an immediate scared to play my music for him!… Stravinsky sat be considered as an allegory of the Empress Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982). MacLeish hit and for several years was performed all very close to me on my left, his spectacles raised Elisabeth I, whose coronation took place in knew Nabokov’s music from performances in over the United States and Europe. Then the onto his forehead. ‘Must you write so sloppily?’ 1741. Ode consists of ten loosely related Paris and proposed that Nabokov write a truly piece disappeared from the stage and it was he said, looking at my untidy, pencilled movements: airs, recitatives, duos, choruses American ballet depicting the construction of only much later that Nabokov could trace the manuscript, ‘One can barely read it!’… Stravinsky and symphonic interludes. The choreography the famous Union Pacific railway: Union original score. It was never published. In 1999 stopped me and said, ‘Sing just the soprano, I’ll for the Ballets Russes performances was by Pacific. The choreography was rather simple; the Residentie Orchestra The Hague finally figure out the bass myself’. Leonid Massine, the staging by Pavel every dancer in the company was allowed a commissioned a printed and corrected score Stravinsky played the bass line on the piano, Tchelitchev, and Roger Desormière conducted solo or a pas de deux. Massine himself to be taken from the autograph which is now Serge Lifar turned the pages and later on the soloists, orchestra and chorus. Massine’s danced the barman, and for prima ballerina in the archives of the University of Texas in George Balanchine joined them, singing the choreography was as modern and surrealist as Tamara Toumanova Nabokov wrote (only a few the USA. solo bass line while playing on the piano the the staging was romantic and fairy-like with its days before the premiere in Philadelphia) a solo soprano part! blue shades and neon lights. Its success was short Mexican dance which became hugely © 2002 Leo Samama Ode is a rather unique work in the considerable and after ballet and concert popular. As the original manuscript of the repertoire. It has been staged as a ballet, performances in Paris and London, Nabokov’s score indicates, each of the scenes consists of We wish to thank Dominique Nabokov, the although it is a moot point whether it was name as a young composer of great promise a chain of dances linked together into four widow of the composer, for her help with the originally intended as such or whether was established. main sections including the introduction. Since realisation of these two recording premieres, Diaghilev made this decision. In reality the In 1929 Nicolas Nabokov completed the fourth movement is rather long and and Ernst Oosterveld for the editing of the music seems more of an oratorio; not like his Lyrical Symphony which was performed diverse, it could be divided after ‘The Start of score of Union Pacific. Stravinsky’s neo-baroque Symphonie des under Pierre Monteux and Charles Munch all the Fight’ (as indicated by a closing and rising psaumes (1930), but rather in the vein of the over Europe, and under Serge Koussevitsky of the curtain in the autograph), with the final Born in the former Soviet Union, Marina nineteenth-century Russian romances and and Monteux all over the United States. section constituting a finale. Shaguch studied at the Rimsky-Korsakov Glinka’s operas. Ode contains virtually no Stravinsky, too, championed Nabokov’s In composing Union Pacific Nabokov was Conservatory in St Petersburg and whilst a polyphony, nor any real symphonic lines. symphony (‘He really has a gift that I find mainly inspired by old cylinder recordings of student won a gold medal in the Glinka Nabokov preferred a more primitive, pleasant’), and recommended that Ansermet popular songs and dances from the beginning Competition. She is currently a resident soloist homophonic and in many ways more Russian have a look at the score. In 1933, however, of the century, collected by his friend Gerald with the Kirov Ensemble (of the renamed style for his music (that is two- instead of Nabokov moved to the United States in order Murphy. Since the final green light for the tour Mariinski Theatre), with whom she has three-dimensional). It is based on a lyrical to lecture on western art for the Barnes of the Ballets Russes and the commission performed roles such as Tatiana (Eugene meditation by the Russian poet and scientist Foundation. were only given some three weeks before the Onegin), Marguerite (Faust) and Lyudmila Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765): his A year later he received a commission to premiere, the impresario Sol Hurok arranged (Ruslan and Lyudmila). Marina Shaguch has ‘Evening meditation upon the Greatness of write a ballet to be performed by the Ballets for Nabokov to be assisted by the young also performed with orchestras worldwide, God on the occasion of the Great Northern Russes and Leonid Massine in the United composer Eddie Powell, who helped with including the Rotterdam Philharmonic 6 7 CHAN 9768 BOOK.qxd 23/8/07 3:48 pm Page 8 Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony and Formed in 1971 with some of the most of its own hall in 1987, the Dr Anton He has been Artistic Director of the State The Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, in roles which talented students from the Moscow State Philipszaal, situated in the heart of The Symphonic Cappella for over twenty-five years include Desdemona (Otello), Elisabetta (Don Conservatory, the Russian State Symphonic Hague.