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The Musica Viva Orchestra began the season with Mendelssohn

The opening of the concert season of the chamber orchestra Musica Viva by Alexander Rudin was not magnificent, but, as is customary, it was not banal. And again it emphasized the special repertoire style of the orchestra and its lively, discreet performing style. Another question is that the new Mendelssohn Gala program, fashioned from the music of a textbook author rarely heard in Moscow (for the 200th anniversary, which the whole of Europe celebrates in 2009), did not reveal anything hitherto unknown in Mendelssohn’s works and the style of the orchestra time of quality and opportunity.

As if continuing last season's program from the overture "The Tale of the Beautiful Melusine" and the "Reformation" Symphony, Musica Viva now again spoke about Mendelssohn's whimsical "historically oriented" romanticism, about the transparency of his writing and clarity of thought, about the fascination with past music and the fluency of his fingers, with which it is narrated.

They played the Octet for Strings in E flat major - a wonderful, Schubertian dancing piece, in which the orchestra's string players had to fearlessly apply all their virtuosity and ensemble skill. And although his role in the program was introductory, the quality of the game was not so. The youthful violin concerto in D minor (once lost for a hundred years, and then returned from oblivion in the famous performance of Menuhin), now played by the rising star of the Russian philharmonic scene Alena Baeva, contained even less performance intrigue. “The concert is full of discoveries, which does not negate its traditional concept,” Menuhin explained. In the Chamber Hall of the House of Music, between discovery and traditionalism, the musicians chose rather the latter, accompanying their choice with a slightly nervous and shy freshness of their view of music.

The pious sentimentalism of Mendelssohn's romance with religious tradition (successfully matching the sentimental piety of the Rudin orchestra's performing style) resulted in a rare performance of the rare Psalm No. 42 (“As a deer desires the springs of water”) for soloist, choir and orchestra. The soloist was Sylvia Hamvasi - prima of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Dusseldorf), where she sings a very wide repertoire from Monteverdi to Janacek, including Charpentier, Handel, Offenbach, Mozart and Leoncavallo. And he sings, in all likelihood, equally accurately and expressively. At least in this way, stylistically attentive and generally delicate, Hamvazi, demonstrating not so much the special beauty of timbre as cultural vocals, sounded in a picturesque Moscow interpretation of Mendelssohn's Psalm.

On November 24, the Mendelssohn Gala program, the Rudin orchestra and soloists will be in Dusseldorf, where Mendelssohn once joyfully worked, and now Silvia Hamvazi. And soon after the Dusseldorf performance in Moscow - the main events of the Musica Viva season.

In December, in the Philharmonic subscription “Opera Masterpieces”, the orchestra, which by that time is still clearly in shape, plays Mozart’s “Idomeneo” with specially commissioned soloists (including Kresimir Speišer, Sarah Kastle, Inga Kalna). And a few days after Idomeneo, the legendary authenticist Sir Roger Norrington will stand behind the orchestra for the third time to perform not only Brahms with Alexei Lyubimov at the piano, but also Tchaikovsky in a purely European historically oriented manner, which made him famous - Sixth "Pathetique" symphony. And here you can expect a lot of amazing things.

Yulia BEDEROVA