This year the Easter Festival in Moscow presents two works of Rodion Shchedrin in the capital of Russia
On the 12th of April 2015 Denis Matsuev presented the audience the Second piano concerto of Rodion Shchedrin with Mariinsky Orchestra under the conduction of Valery Gergiev. The concert was written in 1966 shortly after the Thaw period in USSR and still confused many from the Composer Union of the USSR. Many accused this outstanding work of Rodion Shchedrin of dodecophony and put a question about the ideological role of such music in the culture of USSR.
The concert itself is one of the most distinguishing works in ouevre of the composer. It is one of the most modern works considering the time when it was written. Strong dialogues of the first part change to aleothorical, absolutely free elements, when the audience thinks that the soloist behind the grand piano composes the work himself while playing and only at the very end of the second part we see that the composer takes over again and the original order is back. The third part of the concert starts with a sort of Orthodox church bell music which changes into different forms and becomes even jazz like at the end of the piece.
Denis Matsuev who has already played the concert several times is considered to be one of the best performers for this piece. He feels every single note and movement in the score which lets the audience really feel itself into the concert.
“I wanted to show the possible combination of different music styles” – so wrote the composer some day as if he felt the coming of the Post Modern Era.
On the next day in Tchaikovsky Grand Concert Hall the Mariinksy Theatre presented the opera Left Hander which was written to the 60th Jubilee of Valery Gergiev and the opening of the new stage of Mariinsky. This first performance in Moscow was greatly accepted by the public and media. The world premiere of the opera took place on the 23rd of June 2013 in St.Petersburg at the stage of Mariinsky II.
The soloists, choir and orchestra of Mariinsky Theatre has already toured with the opera in London’s Barbican Hall in November 2014 where the opera had the same success as now in Moscow.
A month before the Easter Festival in Moscow Mariinsky Theatre released a CD with a complete recording of this latest big piece of the composer. The CD can be purchased via the webpage of Mariinsky www.mariinsky.ru/en/. Many critics in Russia and abroad made great notions of this outstanding release.