Theme

On april 6, 1971 Igor Stavinsky, the “Picasso of music”, died in New York City, 88 years old. He was buried in San Michele near Venice, near the grave of Sergei Diaghilev, the man with whom he not only celebrated his first triumphs for the Ballets Russes, but who also wrote most of the Russian music during his emigrants existance as ‘global citizen’. In Moscow Alfred Schnittke composed a Canon In Memoriam Igor Stravinsky, that is played by the Tale Quartet. Jelena Firsova wrote her third string quartet, ‘Misterioso’, in 1980 on the occasion of the birthday of Stravinsky. Although she didn’t want to write program music, the music is closely related to death, especially the mystical aspects of it. We will listen to the Lydian String Quartet. 
A year later Andrej Esjpaj completed his second piano concert. He is the soloist of this concert in a performance with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yevgeny Svetlanov.
According to his biographer Krzysztof Meyer Dmitri Shostakovich took the next step in his artistic development with his 12th String Quartet in 1968. For the first time he used elements of the twelve-tone technique with clear thematic intentions. He would be doing this again in the violin sonata he wrote at the end of that year for the birthday of David Oistrach, but according to Meyer he was less able to realise the organic combination of elements in this piece, as he did in the quartet. So let us listen to the Beethoven Quartet with the twelfth string quartet.
Death was a theme that was officially ‘blacklisted’ and thus taboo for any work of art that wanted to be called ‘socialist realist’. In his Fourteenth Symphony, which he dedicated to Benjamin Britten (pictured with a rather morbid grinning Shostakovich (left) with Benjamin Britten), Shostakovich took it to the central theme on poems by no less forbidden poets, such as “the Rilkes, Lorcas and Guillaumes”, with whom Serafim Toelikov, Chairman of the Composers Union, meant French poet Apollinaire. Composer Dmitri Smirnov attended the dress rehearsal and noted that all parts were based on monograms of Bach, the “Dies Irae” and the initials of the composer himself. The Small Hall of the Moscow conservatory was completely packed on the hot summer day of the dress rehearsal, but the government was completely absent, except Pavel Apostolov, originally a musicologist who had already boosted the smear campaign against Shostakovich and Prokofiev in the forties. It was very unusual for the composer to appear on stage before the beginning, but Shostakovich wanted to explain that he wanted to enter into controversy with other composers who had voiced death, such as Mussorgsky, Verdi and Richard Strauss. In all these works death provided mitigation, solace and new life. Not with Shostakovich. "And that is why", said the composer, "I would like to quote our outstanding Soviet writer Nikolai Ostrovsky, who argued that we can live only once, therefore we have to live an honest and decent life, and we should never do something we will regret later."During his speech there was some turmoil in the audience and a deathly pale man left the room. The rehearsal began and when the last significant part with the words "death almighty who watches over us…" died away, the corpse of the man who had left the room earlier, Pavel Apostolov, lay in the corridor. Listen to soprano Galina Vishnevskaya and bass Mark Resjetin and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Barshai.
Click here for the texts of all poems in their original language and the Russian translation.
The remainder of this episode we will listen to songs from Arno Babadzjanjan on poems from Russian writers from a younger generation: Andrej Voznesensky and Robert Rozjdestvensky. As long as time allows us to we will listen to Sini Tuomisalo, accompanied by pianist Sakari Hyrkkö. 
1. Alfred Schnittke (Engels 24.11.1934 – Hamburg 3.8.1998).
Canon in memoriam Igor Stravinsky (1971): Lento.
The Tale Quartet: Tale Olsson and Patrik Swedrup, violin, Ingegerd Kierkegaard, viola, Helena Nilsson, cello.
BIS-CD-547.1-2008.
2. Jelena Firsova (21.3.1950).
Misterioso in memoriam Igor Stravinski (String quartet no. 3), opus 24 (1980). 
The Lydian String Quartet: Daniel Stepper, Judith Eissenberg, Mary Ruth Ray, Rhonda Rider.
Meladina Records MRCD-02.
3. Andrej Jakovlevitsj Esjpaj (Kosmodemjansk 15.5.1925).
Concert no. 2 for piano and orchestra (1972): 1) Allegro, 2) Andante, 3) Finale. Andrej Esjpaj, piano, and the USSR State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yevgeny Svetlanov.
Albany TROY 341.
Dmitri Dmitryevich Shostakovich (!906-1975).
4. String quartet no. 12 in D opus 133 (1968): 1) Moderato – Allegretto, 2) Allegretto.
Beethoven Quartet: Dmitri Tsyganov, Nikolai Zabavnikov, violin. Fjodor Droezjinin, viola. Sergej Sjirinsky, cello.
Doremi DHR-7914.
5. Symphony no. 14 in g opus 135 for soprano, bass and chamber orchestra (1969) on texts by Federico Garcia Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, Wilhelm Küchelbeker and Rainer Maria Rilke: 1) The Profundis (Lorca), 2) Malagueña (Lorca), 3) Lorelei (Apollinaire), 4) The Suicide (Apollinaire), 5) On guard (Apollinaire), 6) Madam, look! (Apollinaire), 7) In the Santé prison (Apollinaire), 8) Answer from the Zaporozje kozacs to the sultan of Constantinople (Apollinaire), 9) O, Delwig! O Delwig! (Küchelbecher), 10) Death and the poet (Rilke), 11) Slotsom (Rilke).
Galina Visjnevskaja, soprano, Mark Resjetin, bass, Moscow Chamber Orchestra conducted by Rudolf Barshai.
Brilliant Classics 9010/7.
Arno Babadzjanjan (Jerevan 22.1.1921 – 11.11.1983).
6. God ljoebvi (Year of love) (Andrej Voznjesenski), 7) Vstretsja (Rendez-vous) (Robert Rozjdestvenski), 8) Ozarenije (Insight) (Robert Rozjdestvenski), 9) Nocturne (Robert Rozjdestvenski).
Sini Tuomisalo, vocals, Sakari Hyrkkö, piano.
STSP 0.