| Moscow Easter Festival is in full swing The artistic director of the Easter Festival and its main figure Valery Gergiev with the Mariinsky Theater orchestra played the first three concerts. Over the course of three days, four of Prokofiev’s seven symphonies (First, Second, Third and Sixth), three instrumental concertos (violin concertos by Sibelius and Stravinsky and Rachmaninov’s Second Piano), one symphony by Rachmaninov and one “Gypsy” by Ravel were performed without respite. The first block of the festival has ended, choral programs have begun, tonight the main Easter dish will be the choir “Mystery of Bulgarian Voices”, in addition, they have been calling Moscow since Sunday, and in the meantime Gergiev and his orchestra have gone to the provinces. As Yuri Luzhkov put it at the opening at the House of Music, “the large-scale, cultural, deeply moral Easter Orthodox festival spread widely throughout our cities.”
It is there - in our Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod - that Prokofiev's Seventh and Fifth Symphonies will be performed, respectively, as well as a lot of other good music performed by participants in the Moscow festival schedule and other worthy musicians (for example, Yuri Bashmet and his New Russia Orchestra). The St. Petersburgers will return to Moscow twice - on Friday at the KZCh they will perform Tchaikovsky’s “The Enchantress,” and on the last day of the festival they will play another Prokofiev symphony (the Fourth). That same evening, the last of the soloists appointed by the organizers to be Gergiev's partners (pianist Alexander Toradze) will perform.
Thus, almost everything that Valery Gergiev was going to offer to the Moscow public this year has already been played. The neoclassical First, avant-garde Second, operatic Third and phantasmagoric Sixth symphonies of Prokofiev, together with the lush Second Symphony of Rachmaninov, turned out to be similar in their temperamental step, large sound, weighty cantilenas, spectacular techniques, densely packed arrays, thick play of timbres, high-quality balance of groups and amazing balance between successful pages and only skillful ones.
In addition, two of the three Gergiev soloists have already performed - the freshly lit stars of the world classical industry, the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos and the Chinese pianist Lang Lang. It turned out that it was not so much the well-known teamwork of the orchestra and the familiar manners of the conductor, which allow them to work effectively with well-known or unfamiliar material, that became the main content of the concerts, but rather the beautiful and cheerful performance of young and relevant characters on the academic market. They determine his current face (well, at least part of his face). And their manners tell a lot not only about the young musicians themselves, but also about the context in which dreamy glamor (Lang Lang) or slightly harsh gloss (Leonidas Kavakos), infused with technological virtuosity, noble phrasing and excellent sound quality, become the basis for all kinds of and almost win-win program combinatorics. The gorgeous Sibelius from Kavakos, played without strain, his sharp-tongued Stravinsky, devoid of the charming dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra, the passionate and ponderous Rachmaninov without tears - all this was combined with a good orchestra and Gergiev’s conducting temperament to a greater or lesser extent, but certainly produced proper ceremonial effects capable of decorating any respectable festival.
Meanwhile, the influence of the international market mainstream will now be felt somewhat weaker at the festival. At the same time, intelligent notes will appear in the tone and programs. No less relevant, but more characteristic characters will take part in the intra-festival cycle “Bach Days in Moscow”: the list of intellectuals and lovers of rare styles is headed by the Belgian conductor Philippe Herrweg, followed by violinist Victoria Mullova and oboist Alexey Ogrinchuk. They have slightly different artistic weight and experience, but their sophistication in sophisticated trends makes them similar. Therefore, it is interesting whether Bach’s works, played in the latest European fashion, will be as similar to each other as the festival Prokofiev and Rachmaninov. Yulia BEDEROVA |
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