The Rider on the White Horse in Kazan
Not only works by Sofia Gubaidulina but also new for Kazan citizens names were presented at a concert of the festival Concordia
Another concert has taken place at the International festival of modern music named after Sofia Gubaydulina, it acquainted the listeners with the newest music trends. Its feature was the arrival of violist Yuri Bashmet. Read the details in the material of Realnoe Vremya.
''There is music''
The international festival Concordia is continuing in Kazan. This time the concert was attended by Yuri Bashmet. During a usual media scrum, Bashmet noted that more than fifty compositions were dedicated to him. ''About ten of them stood the test of time, and I can perform them any day,'' said the violist. These works include the works dedicated to him by Sofia Gubaidulina, Alfred Schnittke, Alexander Tchaikovsky, Giya Kancheli.
It is surprising that in the ranks of internationally recognized composers, those who dictate musical trend this century, Bashmet put young composer Kuzma Bodrov, a graduate of the Moscow Conservatory, a student of Alexander Tchaikovsky. The Timur's camp by Alexander Tchaikovsky is a hallmark of the Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra.
''There is music,'' it is what Yuri Bashmet said about the concert for viola and orchestra by Kuzma Bodrov. According to the violist, there is no point to talk about a crisis in symphonic music — interest in it is high. One of the examples is the International festival of contemporary music Concordia in Kazan, which is already seven years old. It is held by the Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra and initiated by chief conductor and artistic director of the orchestra of Tatarstan Alexander Sladkovsky.
All tickets to the festival concerts are sold out. Establishing such a festival, the symphony orchestra as if returning to Kazan Sofia Gubaidulina, whose music sounded here not very often before. Along with this, Kazan fans received an opportunity to listen to the music by contemporary composers, which before Concordia also was performed from case to case in Kazan, and performances couldn't be called of high quality.
The Woman #1 and others
Sofia Gubaidulina is called 'The woman #1 in contemporary music'. She is simple and complex at the same time, she is almost like a recluse, who cares a little about the vanity of the century. A few years ago, having become a Christian (Gubaidulina did I, of course, not because of fashion), she found a new, more close and clear to her philosophy, which has been reflected in her music.
Saturday's concert featured two works by Sofia Gubaidulina — cult The Rider on the White Horse for large orchestra and organ, and one of the earliest works — Fairytale Poem.
The Rider on the White Horse, written in 2002 and dedicated to Valery Gergiev, traces its origin to the interlude St John Passion. The complicated, philosophical music was read by conductor Alexander Sladkovsky as a biblical message about the ends and the beginnings, as the moral message of the composer to the audience.
The conductor here is a conductor of the will of the author, and at the same time, his like-minded associate. The maestro managed to 'deciphe'r all the hidden messages of Gubaidulina, making it passionately and temperamentally.
The concert program presented two new for Kazan audience names – they are Anton Tanonov and Kuzma Bodrov, which have been mentioned above. Their works have been performed in Kazan for the first time. The concert for viola with orchestra by Bodrov, dedicated to Yuri Bashmet, has been performed for the second time, for the first time it sounded at the Bashmet festival in Sochi. The author has considered all remarks, and on Saturday the Kazan audience heard the second version of the concert, which can be considered a premiere.
The concert of Bodrov was bright, imaginative. As a soloist, Yuri Bashmet engulfed the audience with his temperament. The viola in his hands seemed to respond to the subtlest movements of the soul of the musician. By the way, the composer himself was present in the hall during the concert.
The first symphony by Anton Tanonov, it was also the first performance of the works in Kazan – an example of combination of academic and contemporary trends in music. Tanonov was a student of Slonimsky, a graduate of the Conservatory in St. Petersburg, where now he is the head of the department.
Thus, Alexander Sladkovsky gathered in the concert program contemporary composers of different generations, showing one of the sections of modern music. But Concordia is still ongoing, so the Tatarstan symphony orchestra prepares for us a lot of wonderful discoveries.