THE NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF UKRAINE

Transcription

1 24 THE NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF UKRAINE

2 CONCERT PROGRAM Yevhen Stankovych Suite from the ballet The Night Before Christmas I. Introduction II. Oksan and Koval III. Kozachok Yevhen Stankovych Violin Concerto No. 2 I. Largo (Molto espressivo, Rubato) II. Allegro III. Largo Monday, February 13, :00pm Volodymyr Sirenko conductor Dima Tkachenko violin The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine Intermission Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 Pathétique I. Adagio Allegro non troppo II. Allegro con grazia III. Allegro molto vivace IV. Finale: Adagio lamentoso This concert is generously supported by the Ihnatowycz Family Foundation and the Temerty Family Foundation. MEDIA PARTNER Peter Oundjian Music Director I hope you enjoyed the pre-concert lobby performance of the Toronto-based Ukrainian Art Song Project, with Canadian superstars Krisztina Szabó and Russell Braun, accompanied by Albert Krywolt! On stage, we welcome our guests, The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. This orchestra has a long tradition of music-making, and it is a rare privilege to hear them here in Toronto. Conductor Volodymyr Sirenko is joined by soloist Dima Tkachenko. Yevhen Stankovych is perhaps the most distinguished Ukrainian composer of his generation. His ballet The Night Before Christmas is a truly colourful work, joyful and celebratory, masterfully orchestrated. His Second Violin Concerto is very different rhapsodic and lyrical, with a dark intensity that builds relentlessly to a passionate and dramatic final section, before closing quietly with a moving hymn. The second half of the concert features Tchaikovsky s wonderful final symphony, the Pathétique. We so often speculate on whether or not the final moments of the finale are a farewell to the world that we can overlook the sheer beauty and sparkling high energy of the rest of the music. 25

3 THE DETAILS Yevhen Stankovych, composer The Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych is one of the most outstanding figures in the world of music at the end of the 20th century. The collapse of the USSR gave him the opportunity to establish contacts with the world, resulting in recordings of his music by various companies and the performance of his works by performers in other countries, bringing him wide recognition as one of the most individualistic and eminent composers of our time. The composer does not subscribe to any of the contemporary tendencies in composition. At the beginning of the 1970s, he started developing his own manner and style which can be called new universalism or independent universalism. Without a doubt, new universalism is one of the most promising tendencies in the development of music. New universalism is the combination of the most effective techniques of music in the 20th century and the profound emotions of music composed in previous centuries. It is the bridge connecting the past, the present, and the future of music. The regime of socialist realism, enforced with greater fervour in the Soviet Ukraine of the 1970s than in Russia, attempted to create barriers to external influences. Yevhen Stankovych is recognized as the leader of the group of young Ukrainian composers who, in the early 1970s, brought down those barriers and introduced innovation in their techniques and themes. By working within his own parameters, he fell out of favour with Soviet cultural authorities and was rarely given opportunities to have his works performed or recorded outside the USSR. His conflicts with the system continued until the demise of the USSR. Beginning with his first compositions, Stankovych declared himself a composer of dramatic temperament, not averse to emotional risk. His works reflect his defiance and, at the same time, his optimism. Stankovych uses music as a means of expressing his philosophical and dramatic thoughts. Stankovych s uniqueness lies in his pronounced affinity with the vernacular, in his blending of folk motifs with orchestral colours, reproducing aspects of folk song and of traditional Ukrainian folk polyphony. A composer, he believes, cannot create music in isolation from his cultural lifeline and should work to extend that lifeline to his audience. The composer s elaborate polyphonic textures and meditative lyricism are reminiscent of the strict instrumental style of Baroque music, while the full-bodied, affected melodies with an obvious post-romantic colouring give his music warmth and expressiveness. His music is remarkable in many respects, showing his emotional freedom, consummate technical mastery, and flexibility of form. This is why Yevhen Stankovych s music differs radically from the music of his contemporaries; his music is unique in its internal fulfillment, 26

4 emotional intensity, originality, and logical world view. Without repeating his musical elements, he is nevertheless constant in creating his own musical universe. All of these factors explain his popularity as a composer, both with the public and with musicians. Yevhen Stankovych is one of the composers who reinvigorated in a natural and distinct manner the way to connect the tradition of folklore with the most contemporary techniques of the avant-garde, thus creating a new style of music (for example, The Flower of the Fern, 1976). Other composers in the former USSR started to emulate Stankovych, with a number of ballets, oratorios, and operas in this style written and performed in the 1980s. He was one of the first composers, not only in Ukraine, but also in the former Soviet Union who started developing the principles of polystylistics as well as collage (Sinfonietta in modo collage, 1970; the ballets Maiska nich [May Night] and Nich pered Rizdvom [The Night Before Christmas]). Yevhen Stankovych is a pioneer in the rebirth of the neo-romantic style in the second half of the 20th century (Symphony No. 4 Sinfonia Lirica, 1976). At the beginning of the 1980s, he developed his own musical system, which he calls polyphony of layers. One of the fundamental philosophic underpinnings of the polyphony of layers is an acceptance of the development of music as a multidirectional and complex process, which may develop either in synchronicity or independently and at a distance from one another. Symphony No. 5 (A Symphony of Pastorals) was the first work written in this manner. Other works written in this manner include Dictum, which was written shortly after the Chornobyl tragedy and is regarded as the only composition that adequately expresses the tragedy; Requiem- Kaddish Babyn Yar for tenor, bass, chorus, and orchestra; and A Poem of Sorrows for orchestra. Prior to 1991, Yevhen Stankovych s works were regularly censored or banned by Soviet authorities. The folk opera The Flower of the Fern was banned for its use of traditional Ukrainian folk melodies and their interpretation in a contemporary genre. The score, sets, and costumes were destroyed by Soviet authorities. Excerpts from the work were first performed by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in The ballet Ol ha was repeatedly censored and was not performed in its original form until after The ballet The Agony: Rasputin (originally titled Prometheus) was also severely censored; the work was first performed with its original music and libretto in 1989 in Skopje, Macedonia. Shortly after the explosion of the Chornobyl reactor, Yevhen Stankovych wrote the first of several works commemorating the present and historical tragedies which took place in Ukraine. In September 1991, following Ukraine s declaration of independence, he wrote Requiem-Kaddish Babyn Yar on the 50th anniversary of the tragedy at Babyn Yar, memorializing the annihilation of Jews in Ukraine, and the score to the film Izhoy (The Outcast) about the plight of a Jewish family in Ukraine fleeing the Nazis. These works were the composer s gift to the Jewish community of Ukraine. He completed this cycle with Black Elegy (premièred by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra) and Requiem for those who died of famine, the first work dealing with the Chornobyl tragedy and the second concerning the famine in Ukraine that killed over six million Ukrainians. By Olena Korchova, musicologist, PhD Associate Professor, Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music of Ukraine 27

5 THE DETAILS Yevhen Stankovych Born: Svaliava, Ukraine, Sep 19, Suite from the ballet min 26 Violin Concerto No. 2 The Night Before Christmas min Composed: 2006 Composed: 1992 According to Ukrainian musicologist Edward Jaworski, this ballet is based on the novel of Nikolai Gogol from the cycle Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, which was also used for the librettos of operas by Tchaikovsky (Boots), Rimsky-Korsakov (The Night Before Christmas), and M. Lysenko (Christmas Night). Created in 1992, Stankovych s ballet demonstrates an emotional freedom and an artistic and imaginative richness that is inherent in his music. With extensive experience in the genre of ballet (other works include Princess Olga and Prometheus), Yevhen Stankovych implemented a new form with clear aesthetic criteria and with his own original concept. Although the story The Night Before Christmas already exists in the opera genre, neither Lysenko nor Rimsky-Korsakov fully developed its theatrical and entertainment qualities, wealth of customs, beliefs, and fantasy. Perhaps Yevhen Stankovych for the first time in Ukrainian music turned to a genre like ballet pasticcio that allowed him to freely operate in different stylistic layers. According to Yevhen Stankovych, The music tapestry of my ballet [The Night Before Christmas] is based fully on Ukrainian folklore and reflects all that is inherent in Gogol s story. It depicts vignettes of people celebrating Christmas and singing carols and New Year songs. It portrays great human love and fantastic images of evil spirits and celestial bodies. The Introduction is a large musical portrait based on the Ukrainian folk song Shchedryk. Oksan and Koval evokes the eternal theme of love in the broadest sense. And the final movement, Kozachok is the ecstatic dance of the Cossacks. It evokes the power of the energy and strength of the Ukrainian people. The composer offers the following thoughts on this work: The form of the concerto is not conventional except, perhaps, for its outline. The musical language and other means of expression were created exclusively from an internal awakening and aspirations, as if everything on this earth comes from one maxim: that the present is the past, and the past can be the future. Cadenzas and violin-part editing for Violin Concerto No. 2 by Ukrainian violinist Dima Tkachenko. Notes translated from the original Ukrainian by Olena Jatsyshyn 28

6 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 Pathétique 45 min Born: Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia, May 7, 1840 Died: St. Petersburg, Russia, Nov 6, 1893 Composed: 1893 Tchaikovsky believed himself to be the victim of a cold, implacable fate. In the last three of his six symphonies, he depicted his struggle against it. He won some degree of victory in the Fourth and Fifth. But in the Sixth, his final and greatest work (which could be taken as his last will and testament), destiny reigns supreme. Nine days after the première, he was dead. According to his brother Modest, on the day after the première, the composer was still searching for an appropriate title for the piece (he did not wish to call it simply Sixth). Modest suggested pathétique, a French word of Greek origin that is Tchaikovsky dedicated his Sixth Symphony to his beloved nephew Vladimir Bob Davidov. While composing the work, he wrote frequently to Bob, and his letters offer glimpses into his creative process. As he wrote in February 1893, There will be much formal innovation in this symphony and incidentally, the finale will not be a noisy allegro but, on the contrary, a most long drawn out adagio. You can t imagine what bliss I feel, being convinced that my time is not yet passed and I can still work. When he had finished in August, Tchaikovsky told Bob that he considered this symphony his best and, in particular, the most sincere of all my works. Tchaikovsky and Vladimir Bob Davidov, c commonly used in Russian. The nearest English equivalent, pathetic, conveys only part of the original meaning, leaving its subtext of passion and suffering unexpressed. The composer inscribed this immediately on the score. The symphony opens with a slow, mournful introduction. The expansive exposition section contrasts a restless first subject with a consoling second. The explosive start of the development heralds many pages of mounting hysteria. It is crowned by a passage of slow, stern grandeur, where the trombones and tuba sound like nothing so much as funeral orators. The next movement, a waltz, promises graceful contrast at first, but with five beats to the bar instead of the usual three, the mood is thrown off kilter, with disturbing, bittersweet results. The third movement begins as a dynamic, Mendelssohnian scherzo. Gathering momentum, it appears to become a blazing march of triumph, sweeping all before it. Yet this is not the only possible way of looking at it. David Brown, author of an authoritative, four-volume biography of Tchaikovsky, comments, this march is, in fact, a deeply ironic, bitter conception a desperate bid for happiness so prolonged and vehement that it confirms not only the desperation of the search, but also its futility. The symphony s slow, anguished finale confirms this view. Despite repeated protests, resignation becomes complete. A quiet stroke on the tam tam announces fate s victory; the music sinks back into the dark depths of the orchestra where it began. Program note by Don Anderson 29

7 THE ARTISTS Volodymyr Sirenko conductor Born in 1960 in the Poltava region of Ukraine, Volodymyr Sirenko has been compared by the international press to other brilliant conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen and Simon Rattle. Sirenko graduated in 1989 from the Kyiv Conservatory, where he studied conducting under Allin Vlasenko. In 1990, he was named a finalist at the International Conducting Competition in Prague. A year later, he was appointed as Chief Conductor of the Ukrainian Radio Symphony Orchestra, a position he held until 1999, when he became the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the celebrated National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (formerly known as the Kyiv State Symphony Orchestra). Sirenko has toured and appeared in numerous concert halls around the world, and has worked with many international orchestras, including the Moscow Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Sinfonia Warsovia, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, National Philharmonic of Russia, Brooklyn Philharmonic, and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. Volodymyr Sirenko is an Honoured Artist of Ukraine (1997) and an Honoured Artist of the Russian Federation (2003). In 2001, he received the Shevchenko National Prize, Ukraine s most prestigious award. Dima Tkachenko violin Ukraine-born violinist Dima Tkachenko started playing the violin and piano before the age of six. He studied at the Lysenko Music School in Kyiv, graduating to the National Music Academy of Ukraine (formerly Kyiv Conservatoire). In 1998, he was invited to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and was made a Fellow in Dima Tkachenko was awarded the Guildhall School Concert Recital Diploma (Premier Prix) and was a prize-winner at several international violin competitions including the Carl Nielsen Competition, Lysenko Competition, and Wronski Solo Violin Competition. He has toured extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and has been broadcast on Ukrainian Radio and TV, ORT and Kultura Russian TV, Danish Radio, Polish Radio and TV, and BBC Radio 3 in the UK. Apart from his busy concert career, Dima Tkachenko presently teaches at the National Music Academy of Ukraine, gives masterclasses, is a jury member for several international competitions, and is the co-founder and Artistic Director of the Benjamin Britten International Music Competitions in London. 30

8 The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine Formed by the Council of Ministers of Ukraine in November 1918, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine (NSOU) is considered to be one of the finest symphony orchestras in Eastern Europe. Its first conductor was Oleksander Horilyj. Natan Rachlin was the Artistic Director of the Orchestra from 1937 until Stefan Turchak, Volodymyr Kozhuchar, Fedir Hlushchenko, Igor Blazhkov, and Theodore Kuchar consequently conducted the Orchestra as its Principal Conductors. Other conductors who have worked with the NSOU include Leopold Stokowski, Igor Markevitch, Kurt Sanderling, Evgeny Mravinsky, Kiril Kondrashin, Evgeny Svetlanov, and Gennady Rozhdestvensky. The NSOU was entrusted with the première performances of works by the composers Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khatchaturian, Boris Lyatoshynsky, Valentyn Silvestrov, Myroslav Skoryk, and Evgen Stankovych. The Orchestra has gained international recognition over a remarkably short period of time. After an appearance in Moscow, Dmitri Shostakovich commented: This orchestra has as distinguished a group of performers as one would be likely to find anywhere. The ensemble of the orchestra is of the highest level. In addition, the various soloists and instrumental groups within the Orchestra play exceptionally and complement each other beautifully as would the greatest of the world s symphony orchestras. Volodymyr Sirenko has been the Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the NSOU since 1999, and they have performed in successful concert tours throughout Europe, Australia, Asia, and the Middle East. Since 1993 the NSOU has released more than 100 sound recordings, which include both Ukrainian and international repertoires. Most of these recordings have received the highest international acclaim. In 1994, the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) rated the NSOU s recording of Boris Lyatoshynsky s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3 as The Best Recording of the Year. The CD of Silvestrov s Requiem for Larissa was nominated for a GRAMMY Award in 2005, as was their recording of Violin Concertos by Bloch and Lees in

9 MUSICIANS OF THE NSOU Volodymyr Sirenko ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & CHIEF CONDUCTOR Theodore Kuchar CONDUCTOR LAUREATE First Violins Maksym Grinchenko LEADER Markiyan Hudziy SUB-LEADER Olena Pushkarska Svyatoslava Semchuk Bogdan Krysa Gennadiy Pavlov Roman Poltavets Oksana Kot Olena Poltavets Valery Kuzik Yevgeniya Sirenko Olga Mikhaylyuk Tetyana Pavlova Viktoriia Trach Svetlana Markiv Iurii Stopin Oleksii Sechen Second Violins Galyna Gornostai Valentyna Petrychenko Oleksandra Vasylieva Anastasiya Filippochkina Olena Bardina Ganna Fedchenko Liudmyla Guley Valentyna Voskresenska Andriy Mazko Sergiy Ursulenko Tetyana Nikonenko Nadiia Novikova Vasyl Bakalov Olena Litovchenko Liudmyla Guliei Violas Oleksandr Pohoryelov Galyna Nemeczek Viktor Navrodskyi Oleh Trunov Orest Krysa Valentyna Lisovenko Bogdan Fesyuk Volodymyr Ponomarov Vira Ampilogova Maksym Bakeyev Anatilii Gavrylov Cellos Olena Ikaieva Liliia Demberg Andrii Aleksandrov Tetiana Miastkovska Tamara Semeshko Mykola Dorosh Ihor Yarmus Ievgen Skrypka Tetyana Dondakova Olena Dvorska Alina Matoushek Double Basses Volodymyr Grechukh Oleksandr Neshchadym Oleksandra Chaikina Taras Butko Volodymyr Kaveshnikov Dmytro Golovach Ivan Lykhovyd Flutes Oleh Sheremeta Myroslava Sirenko Igor Iermak Mykola Mykytei Larysa Plotnikova Oboes Gennadii Kot Yurii Litun Viktor Chernigovskyi Viktor Mishchenko Clarinets Petro Zabolotnyi Iurii Nabytovych Viktor Gornostai Oleksandr Avramenko Bassoons Taras Osadchyi, Principal Oleksiy Yemelyanov Roman Chornogor Volodymyr Antoshin Horns Valentyn Marukhno Andriy Shkil Kostiantyn Sokol Boris Rudniev Iuliia Shevchenko Anzhela Zinchenko Evgen Churikov Trumpets Yurii Kornilov Viktor Davydenko Grygorii Kozdoba Dmytro Kovalchuk Trombones Andriy Golovko Danylo Sydorov Mykola Artiushenko Andrii Zymenko Tuba Oleksiy Li Percussion Dmytro Ulianov LEADER Danylo Shurygin Evgen Ulianov Gennadii Khlopotov Stanislav Ulianov Oleh Sokolov Harp Nataliia Izmailova Valeriia Tikhonova Piano Lyudmyla Kovaleva 32

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