Grail of Siberian culture

I would like to say a lot of words following the Trans-Siberian Art Festival that ended a week ago. In four years, it has become a ready-made project that has not descended from somewhere above onto Siberian soil; today it is increasingly connected with the Novosibirsk musical culture, and this interdependence benefits both sides.

From its first year, the Trans-Siberian Art Festival was very different from much of what Novosibirsk offers to the world, with a clearly defined concept. From the beginning of its history, the key theme was travel - through the Trans-Siberian Railway, which leads to all directions of the world - through various points on the map of musical history and musical today. A couple of years ago, the slogan “The whole musical world on the stage of the Philharmonic” appeared - also fully reflecting the idea of ​​​​gathering the best in their fields at one point in space and time.

For me, to better understand the meaning of what is happening, it is necessary to add to the above: the events unfold not in an abstract point in space, but in concrete Novosibirsk - the hometown of the festival’s art director Vadim Repin, and this automatically gives any concepts and movements of the festival program another semantic dimension. It is important - it is about human relationships, traditions, continuity, trust, belonging, gratitude and much more. It is this emotional connection that Repin has with Novosibirsk - his mother lives here, for many here he is still “Vadik”, here is the orchestra - the first with which he, eight years old, played and with which he began his big festival project - and thanks to this, everything that happens at the Trans-Siberian is filled with special meaning.

Festival programs, while maintaining the initially specified mandatory components - world premiere, children's program, chamber music evening, concerts at regional venues - every year fill these structures with new meaning and offer something fundamentally new. New this year was the introduction of pre-classical music. Previous programs, and this was realized only in contrast to the current one, were designed primarily in a romantic style (not counting the obligatory annual world premieres and other exceptions), and this hardly predetermined, rather spontaneously formed limitation in the view of that very “musical world”, turned out to be overcome this time naturally and convincingly. The program of music by Vivaldi, Bach's St. John's Passion - and the musical landscape has become much more diverse, closer to musical reality, and the program has become more balanced.

I would like to talk about these two pre-classical stories in detail. For about a hundred years now, the whole world, when turning to pre-classical or early music, has in mind historically oriented performance. This movement sees its task as recreating the authentic sound of early music - natural for its native era. Authenticists (adherents of this movement) not only read ancient treatises on performance and work on the interpretation of texts, strokes, dynamics, tempos and other aspects of musical language, they pay no less attention to the material side of the issue - they prefer to play on copies of ancient instruments.

It is impossible to call the experience of performing with recognized figures of historically oriented performance of Novosibirsk groups truly authentic - they do not play ancient instruments, and this direction in the repertoire of each of them is definitely not the leading one (if present at all). But! When it comes to a program played professionally, honestly, with dedication, pleasure and a sense of revelation, you must agree that attempts to measure the degree of authenticity of what was sounded begin to seem like a speculative convention. And this fully applies to the two stories that unfolded at the festival.

The hero of both historically informed programs is the Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. This is a group with extremely wide stylistic possibilities - they play modern music and classical music, avant-garde and romanticism, film music and other modifications that lie at the intersection of popularity and academicism. Of course, they had both classical and pre-classical experience in their biography, but it seems that they had never before been heard in such an ultimately baroque degree as at a concert with violinist and conductor Giuliano Carmignola. It is always very noticeable whether people on stage are engaged in diligent playing or living out pleasure and freedom. The last one was about Carmignola and the orchestra: polished strokes, dynamic contrasts, as if the sharpness settings had been cranked up to the limit, and most importantly, the feeling of a rapid pulse, in the beating of which adrenaline and endorphins are produced at once. And so - in everything - from "The Four Seasons", which in relation to this performance the language would not dare to call textbook, rather endlessly unexpected - to the little-known Vivaldi concertos, which Carmignola proposed for the program with truly convincing arguments: good music, why not play?

“The St. John Passion” became no less an event, and given the number of performers, the duration and thoroughness of the rehearsal process, even more impressive. They are the first large vocal-symphonic project of the festival in four years, and, of course, a unique and important experience for the Novosibirsk Choir, which is for the first time involved in the Trans-Siberian program on such a large scale.

Surprisingly for our city of opera houses, philharmonic halls and conservatories, Passions are played very rarely here, so the very fact of performance, and with it the luxury of listening to Bach live, becomes a big event.

History, coming to life again in the words of the Evangelist and great music, with its extension into eternity, did not leave a feeling of the transcendental and cosmic nature of what was happening. And those who were on stage that evening were seen as truly parts in the picture of the Universe. The universe, as expected, is made up of diversity and even heterogeneity: the Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, the Novosibirsk Choir Chapel, an international team of singers specializing in the performance of ancient music (the piercingly transcendental and crystal clear Marie-Sophie Pollack!), basso continuo masters - Novosibirsk and international - and wind soloists from the symphony orchestra. And all these musical forces were set in motion by the attraction and energy of one person (if we mean Bach by default) - Ilya Korol, violinist, conductor, a man of an unusually bright worldview. Revelations that come to the minds and lives of many as incredible luck and insight, for him, it seems, are the basis of the way of life, and this is the main guarantee of truth in music. “Because without love everything loses its meaning.”

She was the meaning of these “Passion”. According to many musicians, Ilya managed to create such an incredible atmosphere of attention and love at rehearsals and at the concert - for the performers and the music - that it was impossible not to sound properly and with the proper meaning.

I won’t argue, the opinion of a few skeptics has a basis: of course, this performance was not as uniform and perfect, as subtle and accurate as in orchestras and with conductors who laid down their lives on the altar of authenticity. But here was the main idea and the key feeling, wisdom, penetration into and respect for the text - played and spoken, absolute honesty and dedication, the result: a sacred, meaningful sound and the completely religious experience of this score provoked by it.

In general, the theme of love as an integral essence of music and life ran like a red thread through the festival this year. Starting at some point, each of the musicians, day after day, from different angles, touched on this philosophical topic - both Ilya Korol and Vladimir Spivakov spoke about the harmony that music gives to the world, and Vladimir Fedoseev, and before the final concert - Vadim Repin.

About love and trust is, of course, a theme associated with the Trans-Siberian Festival with the Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra. He has been through a lot - and now we are not only talking about Vadim’s first appearance on stage with a large orchestra in the late 70s, but also about many other joint performances, during each of which, according to the violinist, he feels supported by his back. Just look at the story of the closing of the first Trans-Siberian, when, overcoming a difficult situation (Valery Gergiev would not be able to fly in and conduct), Repin proposed, and the orchestra agreed to perform Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto without a conductor. The risk was incredible: the score is extremely complex, not everyone is able to perform it flawlessly with a conductor, and even without it, the chances of finishing it to the end tended to be discouraging. But they did it - and with such incredible concentration and energy, forcing the thousand-strong audience to forget about anything other than what was happening on stage for forty minutes, that the performance, without exaggeration, can be described as outstanding, and the achieved degree of closeness and trust between Repin and the orchestra can be defined as transcendental.

This group was originally conceived as one of the foundations of the festival program, and every year it carries most of the programs on its shoulders, takes the stage with different conductors and different repertoire. And this is a great opportunity for the ensemble to once again harden and become stronger, and for the public to appreciate the relative weight of the variables influencing the orchestra.

The orchestra's programs at this festival included music from Copland and Gershwin through the late Shostakovich and the world premiere of our contemporary Enyott Schneider - to the vast element of romanticism, with which the orchestra coincides best stylistically. And a very special experience in this series was the concert conducted by Vladimir Fedoseev. I don’t know whether it was through skill or the power of authority, but the conductor transformed the ensemble, which was already quite exhausted, having played not the most musically and emotionally comfortable program of accompaniments as part of the world premiere concert. Fedoseev, going to Siberia to conduct the orchestra of Arnold Katz, who was well known to him, for the first time, according to him, took a conscious risk - and proposed Weber’s Second Symphony, which the orchestra had never played before, for the program. And, frankly, it was simply impossible to assume that this performance was the first. Every sound shone with the joy of being - completely in keeping with the classical serenity of this score. The orchestra seemed to stand a head taller, straighten its shoulders: the intensity of the strings, the rarely heard shade of their sound - apparently what reviews call brilliance and gloss, confidence and the warm, clear sound of the winds - everything formed into a picture of the Golden Age, the sparkling joy of being, revealed in the sounds. The second movement was not inferior to the symphony - Brahms's Second Piano Concerto with soloist Nicholas Angelich - restrainedly lyrical, sublime - without exaltation, with a seemingly ingenuous and straightforward touch, in fact, as if conveying the only correct - simple view of complex things. The concert sounded business-like, without unnecessary sentimentality, but absolutely precisely - not like Bach, not like Mozart, but - oh God - with an accurate vision of the goal and calmness in achieving it.

Determined initially by Novosibirsk and its culture, every year the Trans-Siberian Festival absorbs it more and more extensively and at the same time affects it more and more widely. Not only the festival is changing, but also the attitude of the public towards it - there is more and more trust in it, and this year for the first time all the halls were full, regardless of whether the name of Vladimir Spivakov, about whom no one needs to explain anything, was on the poster, or the same Carmignol, or the young Latvian maestro Andris Poga, who are better known in the West or in the capitals. These figures - Pablo Ferrandez, Lawrence Foster, Nicholas Angelich, Sergei Nakaryakov, Alexander Knyazev, Alexander Buzlov, Ilya Korol - each is a phenomenon, an integral part of the current musical agenda. The horizons are expanding and the boundaries of what is familiar are being overcome for those who go to concerts and those from whom the classics are far away, and only the name of Repin, which has a very special weight in Novosibirsk, can attract people to the concert hall. New opportunities are seen by those who take part in the extensive program of master classes, which this year has acquired an absolutely incredible scope and greater independence. Academic art is personalized, and therefore more understandable, sympathetic, and humane, seen by those who come to creative meetings with musicians or to film screenings, which this year took place as part of creative meetings with a witness of the century and an acquaintance of the greats - Bruno Monsaingeon.

The involvement of increasingly large philharmonic forces in the festival's projects is becoming as important an experience and impetus for growth for the musicians as for the Novosibirsk public, and Vadim Repin's ambitions to expand and deepen the project on Novosibirsk soil are embodied in surprisingly philanthropic forms.

Trans-Siberian is a true holy grail for Novosibirsk culture - the largest project in the region, a powerful modulator of development, which gives the public and musicians the main thing - impressions and experience, after which it is difficult and simply impossible to remain the same.