On April 9, the MGASO Conservatory will present the program "Sergei Rachmaninov. Spring Concert"

On April 9, at 19:00 in the Great Hall of the MGASO Conservatory, artistic director and conductor Ivan Nikiforchin, soloist Alexey Melnikov and the Sveshnikov State Academic Russian Choir will present a unique program "Sergei Rachmaninov. Spring concert". For music lovers, the beginning of April is always associated with the name of the great Russian composer: April 1, 2025 marked the 152nd anniversary of Rachmaninov's birth.

Conductor Ivan Nikiforchin: "A unique concert awaits you, which will be held together with my already familiar band, MGASO. I am very glad that we will be able to perform a truly exclusive program of works from the late period by Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninov. The program includes works written by a Russian genius at the end of his life. According to this principle, the concert organizers and I selected the program. I really love Rachmaninoff's Fourth Piano Concerto, which is played much less frequently than the more popular Second and Third. Perhaps MGASO, Alexey Melnikov, and I will be able to open this particular composition to some listeners. I consider "Three Russian Songs" for choir and orchestra to be a very special opus in Rachmaninoff's work. This is a small, but incredibly profound, extremely tragic composition that truly occupies a special place both in Rachmaninoff's work and in the conductor's perception. In the second section, "Symphonic Dances" will be performed – the result of the life of a genius."

The 1920s were a difficult period in Rachmaninov's life, a period of searching, a period of rethinking life values. Piano Concerto No. 4 was conceived by Rachmaninoff back in the 1910s, ending a period of creative silence. In the spring of 1914, reports appeared in the Russian press that Rachmaninov intended to write a new concerto by autumn, already ready in sketches. However, various circumstances prevented the composer's plans: the First World War, the February Revolution, the events of 1917, emigration. The concert was completed only in 1926, in a different historical era, in the changed living conditions of both the composer himself and the musical world. The long time interval between the beginning of the work and its completion was reflected in the stylistic unity of the work. The fourth concert bears the imprint of a "transitional period" in the development of the author. And although the Fourth One is close to the Second and Third Concertos, it shows the features of the late Rachmaninov: the desire for strict restraint of expression, graphic musical writing, and an increase in gloomy tones in the finale. The fourth concert was first performed by the author himself in Philadelphia in 1927 with conductor Leopold Stokowski, and premiered simultaneously with "Three Russian Songs." In Europe, Rachmaninoff played the Fourth Concert for the first time at the Philharmonic Concert Hall accompanied by an orchestra conducted by Bruno Walter in 1931 In 1941. Rachmaninoff created a second edition of the Concerto to perform with Eugene Ormandy.

In 1926, “Three Russian Songs” was also written, the last of Rachmaninoff's three works for choir and orchestra. This is the most original of Rachmaninov's short works, the thematic material for which was taken from three traditional folk songs "Across the river, little River", "Oh you, Vanka", "White-faced, ruddy, you are mine". Russian Russian Songs was dedicated to Leopold Stokowski, who conducted the first performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in 1927. There are many recordings of the Three Russian Songs, including those by Leopold Stokowski, Igor Buketov, Charles Dutoit and Evgeny Svetlanov.

In the second part of the program, the orchestral suite "Symphonic Dances" will be performed - a work that completed the creative path of the great composer. By the author's own admission, "Dancing" was the best of all his compositions. The motifs of the medieval sequence Dies Irae, the fabulous operas of Rimsky-Korsakov and sacred music can be clearly heard in the suite. "Symphonic Dances" is a work from the Second World War.

In "Dances," Rachmaninov presented concise images of his life and the fate of the modern world. During the rehearsals with Eugene Ormandy, Rachmaninoff made changes to the instrumentation, and partially rewrote the finale of the suite. The composer dedicated the composition to the first performers of the suite, Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. "Symphonic Dances" was first performed in January 1942 in the USA. In the composer's homeland, the premiere took place in November 1943 in Moscow under the baton of N. S. Golovanov. The recording of the suite was not carried out immediately due to the hardships of wartime. Subsequently, "Symphonic Dances" entered the repertoire of the world's leading orchestras, and were also recorded many times by various ensembles and conductors in the USSR, the USA and Europe.