In 1904, Sergei Rachmaninoff became the head of the Bolshoi Theatre for two years. It happened 14 years after he wrote his First Piano Concerto. The composer wrote it at the age of 17, long before he created his own kind of "joint" Russian-American composition company. Now the Russians were performing at the Alte Oper with just the First concert in the program.
The soloist was Gerhard Opitz, who, in the Chopin framework that kept popping out of Rachmaninoff's early concerto, wonderfully intertwined his bright, austerely Apollinarian playing. The virtuoso cadenza of the first movement was a real achievement in its transparency and splendor of the touch.
Having started the concert very energetically, the orchestra in the instrumental concert looked more interesting than in the first piece of the concert. Perhaps in Russia, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture is performed so often that one can refrain from clearly separating the sweet and bitter passages. Alexander Vedernikov, a very lively and efficient conductor of the orchestra, founded in 1770 by decree of Catherine II, in any case intended to overlook the importance and profound qualities of the work.
After the break, in the performance of Mussorgsky's "Pictures from the Exhibition" in the orchestral version of Ravel, Vedernikov demonstrated even greater conducting expressiveness and the intention to focus a specific orchestral sound. Thanks to the deep strings, powerful intonations of the brass and the magical sensitivity of the woodwinds, Mussorgsky's transcendent harmonic world has acquired unprecedented transparency.
Russian Russian musicians performed Ravel's perception of the Russian sound cosmos with their own, original feeling, so that the Greek-Spanish-Francophilia of this idealistic composer became the ideal of Russians...
The final apotheosis — "The Bogatyr Gate" — was performed so magnificently that it seemed as if Empress Catherine had whispered through the hall. And everyone rejoiced.
Source.
The soloist was Gerhard Opitz, who, in the Chopin framework that kept popping out of Rachmaninoff's early concerto, wonderfully intertwined his bright, austerely Apollinarian playing. The virtuoso cadenza of the first movement was a real achievement in its transparency and splendor of the touch.
Having started the concert very energetically, the orchestra in the instrumental concert looked more interesting than in the first piece of the concert. Perhaps in Russia, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture is performed so often that one can refrain from clearly separating the sweet and bitter passages. Alexander Vedernikov, a very lively and efficient conductor of the orchestra, founded in 1770 by decree of Catherine II, in any case intended to overlook the importance and profound qualities of the work.
After the break, in the performance of Mussorgsky's "Pictures from the Exhibition" in the orchestral version of Ravel, Vedernikov demonstrated even greater conducting expressiveness and the intention to focus a specific orchestral sound. Thanks to the deep strings, powerful intonations of the brass and the magical sensitivity of the woodwinds, Mussorgsky's transcendent harmonic world has acquired unprecedented transparency.
Russian Russian musicians performed Ravel's perception of the Russian sound cosmos with their own, original feeling, so that the Greek-Spanish-Francophilia of this idealistic composer became the ideal of Russians...
The final apotheosis — "The Bogatyr Gate" — was performed so magnificently that it seemed as if Empress Catherine had whispered through the hall. And everyone rejoiced.
Source.
Ravel as an exemplary Russian.
The Bolshoi Orchestra in Frankfurt
The Bolshoi Orchestra in Frankfurt
Frankfurter Rundschau, February 16, 2007
