Music
Valery Gergiev - Rotterdam Phil Concert
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Concert of 20th-century fireworks by Prokofiev, Debussy and Stravinsky
Performers
*Alexander Toradze (piano)
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
Valery Gergiev (conductor)
Programme
Stravinsky : Fireworks Op 4
Stravinsky : Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments*
Prokofiev : Scythian Suite Op 20
Debussy : Le martyre de Saint Sébastien
A sizzling concert of 20th-century masterpieces recorded in Rotterdam under the baton of the greatest modern interpreter of Russian repertoire, Valery Gergiev.
Claude Debussy's music for the stage is dominated by his magnificent opera Pelléas et Mélisande, completed in 1902. Ten years later, he collaborated with Gabriele d'Annunzio to write now little-heard music for the mystery play Le martyre de St Sébastien, from which short extracts are heard here.
Sergei Prokofiev's raw, powerful, almost barbaric Scythian Suite came about following a meeting with ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev in London in 1914: he commissioned a ballet score from the young composer on a Russian fairytale theme, but ultimately rejected it as being too similar to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. However, Prokofiev reworked the music into this orchestral suite, and it was introduced by the composer at the Maryinsky Theater in St Petersburg in January 1916 - the theatre at which Gergiev is now artistic and music director.
Stravinsky's brief orchestral fantasy Fireworks was written in 1908 for the wedding of Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter. It was also produced as a ballet by Diaghilev in Rome in 1917. Fireworks is a symphonic scherzo with hints of impressionism but Stravinsky's trademark offbeat, irregular accents, hinting at the explosive things to come in the Firebird's Danse Infernale and even The Rite of Spring.
Stravinsky composed the Concerto for Piano and Winds during the winter of 1923-24, when he was living in France and touring as a concert pianist. Written for his own performance, the concerto was premiered in Paris by Stravinsky under Sergei Koussevitzky. The scoring of the concerto is unconventional, with a large group of woodwinds and brass made deliberately bottom-heavy by the addition of timpani and three double basses. Explaining, Stravinsky said he avoided the conventional string-based orchestral accompaniment because "strings and piano, a sound scraped and a sound struck, do not sound well together; piano and winds, sounds struck and blown, do."
*Alexander Toradze (piano)
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
Valery Gergiev (conductor)
Programme
Stravinsky : Fireworks Op 4
Stravinsky : Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments*
Prokofiev : Scythian Suite Op 20
Debussy : Le martyre de Saint Sébastien
A sizzling concert of 20th-century masterpieces recorded in Rotterdam under the baton of the greatest modern interpreter of Russian repertoire, Valery Gergiev.
Claude Debussy's music for the stage is dominated by his magnificent opera Pelléas et Mélisande, completed in 1902. Ten years later, he collaborated with Gabriele d'Annunzio to write now little-heard music for the mystery play Le martyre de St Sébastien, from which short extracts are heard here.
Sergei Prokofiev's raw, powerful, almost barbaric Scythian Suite came about following a meeting with ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev in London in 1914: he commissioned a ballet score from the young composer on a Russian fairytale theme, but ultimately rejected it as being too similar to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. However, Prokofiev reworked the music into this orchestral suite, and it was introduced by the composer at the Maryinsky Theater in St Petersburg in January 1916 - the theatre at which Gergiev is now artistic and music director.
Stravinsky's brief orchestral fantasy Fireworks was written in 1908 for the wedding of Rimsky-Korsakov's daughter. It was also produced as a ballet by Diaghilev in Rome in 1917. Fireworks is a symphonic scherzo with hints of impressionism but Stravinsky's trademark offbeat, irregular accents, hinting at the explosive things to come in the Firebird's Danse Infernale and even The Rite of Spring.
Stravinsky composed the Concerto for Piano and Winds during the winter of 1923-24, when he was living in France and touring as a concert pianist. Written for his own performance, the concerto was premiered in Paris by Stravinsky under Sergei Koussevitzky. The scoring of the concerto is unconventional, with a large group of woodwinds and brass made deliberately bottom-heavy by the addition of timpani and three double basses. Explaining, Stravinsky said he avoided the conventional string-based orchestral accompaniment because "strings and piano, a sound scraped and a sound struck, do not sound well together; piano and winds, sounds struck and blown, do."
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