Boris Filanovsky. Music to the city, but not to the world

Music to the city, but not to the world
Boris Filanovsky

Publication date: April 7, 2000

At the end of March, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic named after. Shostakovich presented urbi et orbi (rather the first) plan of its activities for the next season, 2000/01. An intelligently published plump brochure with subscription programs is a most interesting document. It says everything about it: how the bearers of culture think of keeping the former cultured people around them; how to attract new ones; how to make money; how to maintain the image of a “national treasure”.

Depressing thoughts overwhelm you with just a quick glance at the Great Hall season tickets. "Masterpieces of Three Centuries." "Musical Saturdays" "Symphony Evenings" "Classics and modernity". "Musical impressions". It’s as if the compilers are poking around with a lazy paw in the boring history of music, habitually selecting works that were licked to the bone by previous generations. Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Shostakovich, Wagner, Beethoven, R. Strauss, Sibelius (of course, the recorded Violin Concerto)... Brahms again... Liszt, Saint-Saens, Grieg. A little bit of Mozart (of course, the Jupiter symphony)... Again R. Strauss... again Brahms...

Two subscriptions were given to each of the orchestras - ZKR (Honored Ensemble of the Republic, that is, the first orchestra) and ASO (simply the Academic Symphony Orchestra). In the coming season, very little music that is unusual for local audiences will be performed. Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano, Winds and Double Bass, Bartók's Second Violin Concerto, and Szymanowski's Violin Concerto owe their appearance in the programs only to invited soloists. Against this background, two oratorios stand out clearly: “Elijah” by Mendelssohn (first performance in St. Petersburg) and especially “Seven Words of the Savior on the Cross” by Cesar Franck (first performance in Russia). In the year of the 250th anniversary of Bach's death, the St. John Passion (conducted by Vladimir Altshuler, you don't have to listen) and the Mass in B minor conducted by the chief conductor of the Chamber Orchestra Leo Kremer. The activity of this German artist in recent years has noticeably stirred up the swamp, hitherto called “music of the 18th century” or “Viennese classicism” due to a strange misunderstanding - when performed by honest academic conductors, all the music from Vivaldi to Mendelssohn evoked only longing for the unloved (by me) Mahler. Leo Kremer is almost the only conductor who (at least due to his focus on authentic performance) can play an arbitrarily boring hit without the risk of pleasing the public too much.

In the current cultural situation, this is rather a virtue. The tastes of the Russian audience today cannot be indulged. The sluggish repertoire policy of the Philharmonic does not allow the public to expand their stylistic horizons. A banal vicious circle: no new music - no habit of listening to it. The presence of this circle, it seems, is not even realized by Larisa Volkova, who is supposedly the artistic director of the Great Hall. The only glimmers of thought are seen in the subscription with the disgusting title “The Thread that Connects Time (from the Musical Chronicle of the Philharmonic).” The program of the last performance of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, which he conducted ten days before his death, and the programs of the great conductors who performed in this hall - Bruno Walter (concert of 1927), Ernest Ansermet (1929), Hermann Abendroth (1925) - will be played. the concert in the footsteps of Bruno Walter will be conducted by conductor Dmitry Liss (Ekaterinburg).

A separate conversation about the “concert cycles” of the Great Hall, which includes both subscription and non-subscription concerts. A certain number of musical events are lined up (these are subscriptions). Then it is divided into columns (concert cycles). You cannot buy a subscription to the series of concerts. The listener is simply invited to “walk in cycles” - something like how publishers release books in series, appealing to the dormant instinct of a collector. But even here the Philharmonic “information policy” causes laughter: many cycles are much more logical and meaningful than subscriptions. "Twelve popular symphonies" ("Leningrad" by Shostakovich, "Jupiter" by Mozart, "Eroica" by Beethoven, "Unfinished" by Schubert, "Fantastic" by Berlioz, "Italian" by Mendelssohn, "From the New World" by Dvorak... oh, sorry, authors I wouldn’t even need to name them, they are already well-known - boring, of course, but at least some idea, at least some cultural banter). “Premieres of the season” (the aforementioned “Seven Words” by Frank and “Elijah” by Mendelssohn, as well as all opuses performed for the first time at the Philharmonic). “Musical Contrasts” (works for cello and orchestra; this includes almost the most interesting - and, of course, non-subscription - concert of the season: Natalia Gutman plays concerts by Honegger, Lutoslavsky and Prokofiev in one evening!).

The artistic director of the Great Hall, Larisa Volkova, shows from year to year militant ignorance in terms of attracting new music - both historically and for the hall itself. But Irina Rodionova, who holds a similar post in the Small Hall, presented several excellent subscription ideas. “300 years of Russian music”, “Italians in Russia”, “Music of different religious denominations”, “For the joy of those left behind” (this is the motto of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Society; the subscription is dedicated to its 200th anniversary and is composed of works by its members, from John Field and Haydn to Liszt and Wagner). At the same time, in historical excursions, the Small Hall will firmly rely on the few figures of authentic performance and scientists rummaging through the St. Petersburg archives for the purpose of returning to descendants all kinds of cantatas and operas on the occasions of the coronations of Russian monarchs, etc. These are the ensembles "Musica Petropolitana" and "Russian Academy of Ancient Music". The "Moscow Academy of Ancient Music" under the direction of the unfading Tatyana Grindenko was also invited to play. A very elegant idea - a series of vocal cycles from Schubert to Desyatnikov, with the Austro-German opuses sung by (Austro-)Germans, and the French ones by the French.

Of course, the Small Hall is also full of regular vocal and piano subscriptions, but these are the ones that are bought up by the dusty regulars with the greatest enthusiasm. This is a situation that is deplorable and at the same time obliges the cultural leaders to act! That is, gradually change the ratio of concerts, increasing the share of aggressively ideological, educational, shocking ones and eliminating “arias from operas by Russian and foreign composers.”

In my youth I visited both halls very often. What a period of accumulation of musical experience! The very sound of a symphony orchestra turned out to be a sufficient reason to come to some ordinary concert. At home there was a vinyl record player; the quality of them, Soviet ones, was disgusting. I wanted something alive and rich. The older I get, the less objective reasons I have to go to the Philharmonic. But when I do go there, I can see two completely different audiences. If a famous performer gives a concert, then in addition to the season ticket holders, a professional audience comes running. If not very well-known musicians play some new and unusual program, the hall is half empty: the mentioned holders consider such a concert to be a burden on others, hits, and expert listeners, as a rule, are poorly informed about it or are tired of their own activities in order to actively digest the new .

And the vinyl player has sunk into oblivion; everything is now on CD. What should the Philharmonic do to attract people? Offer him the product of the first freshness. Famous orchestras (at all) and conductors (almost) have stopped coming to us - no matter what season it is necessary, Shostakovich and Brahms are obviously worse than you can listen to on disk! Give me something new. And to get people to pay money, convince them that we are living now, and not a hundred years ago... and that listening to current music is interesting and prestigious.

Everything is so... But only completely, completely different people (excluding Irina Rodionova) should be doing this. Professionally suitable. Those who actually love music (this means “professionally qualified”; what does the word “philharmonic” mean?). That is, they understand that she is a living, developing organism. There is no “cultural heritage of great eras” or “national treasure” there.