In the Cultural Centre "Mir"

Musical confession

Opening the new concert season on 1 October, when the world celebrates International Music Day, is a significant undertaking for the Dubna Symphony Orchestra. What did the conductor Sergey Pospelov propose for the orchestra to perform on this day?

Take a look at the programme listings at Moscow's concert halls, where the finest orchestras are inviting you to a vibrant and diverse programme: on 1 October, Vladimir Spivakov and the Moscow Virtuosi will open the 22nd International Festival "Moscow is meeting friends"; the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev will give an exclusive concert in Yerevan; Maestro Arseny Tkachenko, the new chief conductor of the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra invite you to "Four meetings with the important" in Novosibirsk and the Svetlanov State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, conducted by Philipp Chizhevsky will open the new concert season at Zaryadie Hall with a performance of Bruckner's Ninth Symphony, his final composition.

Well, joining this stellar marathon of music celebrations, becoming "one of the"- it's especially honorable to present here in Dubna a programme worthy of this momentous day!

When choosing the repertoire, Sergey Pospelov proposed performing the symphonic fantasy "Francesca da Rimini" and Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Symphony No.5. Performing these profound and incredibly significant compositions for symphony orchestras had long been a dream of the DSO conductor and Music Day was the perfect opportunity.

The programme is certainly not entertaining but it is captivating and sincere. Indeed, it is precisely this sincerity and confessional quality that is the highlight of our choice. That's why we chose P.I.Tchaikovsky, with his life filled with twists and turns, great passions, complex relationships, first and foremost with himself, a constant search for answers to questions about life and death, sin and forgiveness, about what a genius is and what is permitted to a genius unlike ordinary people... That's why his music cannot fail to touch and leave one indifferent, when every note is about him and indeed, about everyone. In the words of Tchaikovsky, "This is a musical confession of the soul that has simmered with much and that by its very nature, pours out through sound, just as a lyric poet expresses himself in verse. The only difference is that music has incomparably more powerful means and a more subtle language for expressing a thousand different aspects of spiritual mood."

The powerful tools of music compelled Pyotr Ilyich, a 23-year-old aspiring official at the Ministry of Justice, to forgo stability and financial security for the elusiveness of a musical career. By quitting his job at the ministry, Tchaikovsky was leaving for nothing. His entire family was completely perplexed, but he remained adamant, writing, "...sooner or later, I will trade my job for music. Don't think I imagine becoming a great artist, I simply want to do what I am drawn by a calling. Whether I become a famous composer or a poor teacher, my conscience will be clear and I will not have the painful right to grumble at fate or at people."

Tchaikovsky, of course, was overly modest in these words. At the age of 26, he began his meteoric rise to fame, writing in virtually every genre imaginable. Over the course of 27 years of his creative career (he died at 53), he left behind about 450 musical works, becoming one of the few destined to achieve worldwide fame during his lifetime. And despite living and composing in the 19th century, Tchaikovsky is still the most performed Russian composer in the world to this day. And the details of his life and biography captivate the public and his image is surrounded by myths and legends.

A few words about the Fantasia and the Fifth Symphony

Pyotr Tchaikovsky's symphonic poem, the fantasy "Francesca da Rimini" is based on a plot from Dante's Divine Comedy ("Inferno", Canto 5) that tells the tragic love of the young married Francesca for Paolo (her husband's younger brother) and their subsequent retribution. The composer was captivated by the touching story of two star-crossed lovers. He reread Canto 5 of Part I ("Inferno") of the Divine Comedy and was deeply moved by it. The idea for a programmatic orchestral composition emerged.

The premiere of "Francesca" took place in Moscow on 25 February, 1877, under the baton of Nikolai Rubinstein and it evoked a storm of delight among both the audience and the musicians. Tchaikovsky considered "Francesca da Rimini" to be the most successful of his programmatic symphonic works.

The Fifth Symphony, one of the most popular orchestral scores in the world repertoire is rightly called a "symphony-drama". Its premise embodies "the fatal force that prevents the impulse of happiness from reaching its goal, that jealously guards against complete and unclouded well-being and peace, that relentlessly follows the hero throughout the work, appearing in every movement and destroying hopes and dreams". A symphony-drama, experiences and disappointments...

Listening to this music today, we naturally perceive it from a different perspective. But the human emotions are the same. And our programme is intended not only for music lovers and professionals. In one interview, our contemporary, the brilliant musician and conductor Philipp Chizhevsky frankly stated, "Often, someone without specialized training perceives music more acutely than a sophisticated, prepared listener, capable of analyzing a performance piece by piece… Because those who analyze music piece by piece don't experience the pleasure, the emotion, that a performance brings. Professional musicians find this joy practically inaccessible; even sitting in the hall and listening, they are forced to analyze… But if someone comes by chance and is completely open, he or she experiences the full range of emotions, in their entirety, without unnecessary reflection. And if one receives such a charge of emotion, being uninformed and the music deeply touches him, then he will want to learn as much about it as possible."

We are confident that Tchaikovsky's music, presented in our programme, will certainly inspire emotions, make us feel and think, as well as will make us better, more honest, kinder and more educated. People are today drawn to beauty. We see so many people coming to concerts and exhibitions simply because they were invited, because it's trendy nowadays. They come for revelations, for a living experience. They come with great pleasure and sometimes, express very precise impressions in their own words, things you often don't hear from musicians.

Perhaps, those who attend our concert will later try to understand the following questions: what is the phenomenon of Tchaikovsky's music? Why are we so interested in him? Where do myths come from? Why is his music so recognizable? Why was Tchaikovsky always and everywhere "one of our own", not just a Russian European, but a Man of the World? After all, he became almost a national composer in countries with completely different cultures - Japan and China.

On 1 October at 7:00 PM, in the Cultural Centre "Mir", we will celebrate this remarkable event together with the Dubna Symphony Orchestra and Sergey Pospelov.

Natalia KASTRO, Director of the DSO