December 23, 2021 | Tchaikovsky Concert Hall
Subscription Series No. 25: The National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia
Soloists: Alexei Volodin, piano
Аnna Aglatova, soprano
Conductor – Vladimir Spivakov
Mozart. Concerto No. 27 for piano and orchestra in B-flat Major, KV 595
Mahler. Symphony No. 4 in G Major
Mozart and Mahler: the juxtaposition of these great names in a concert program has been quite common since the times of Bruno Walter, the great conductor, one of the best interpreters of Mahler's symphonies and first performer of the last of them. The music of the two Viennese classics of the 18th and the 19th centuries has been often performed together, notably when the choice falls onto Mahler's Fourth Symphony in which the composer openly plays with the classicism language, creating a newfangled idyllic utopia and rethinking the stylistics of the past with an inimitable irony. Moreover, Mahler was famed as a brilliant performer of Mozart's scores, and even Brahms, very skeptical of Mahler's experimental compositions, advised listening to Mozart's Don Giovanni only directed by Mahler.
With the very first seasons of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia Vladimir Spivakov incorporated into its repertoire Mahler's music, considering it the measure of performing mastery and made a rule playing Mahler's Fourth together with Mozart's concertos. This time the maestro has chosen the last piano concerto by the Salzburg genius, written shortly before the composer's death and played by him in his last public execution (Mahler created his Fourth 110 years later).
The soloist in the Concerto will be Alexei Volodin, the world-known pianist, Steinway & Sons exclusive artist, who counts Mozart among his most admired composers. Professor Eliso Virsaladze underlined such qualities of her student as “unlimited virtuosity, musicality, ardor and determination” , while the press praises his well-balanced intellectual manner and refined sense of the style. It will be Vladimir Spivakov's first performance with the musician.
The soprano part in the reflective Finale of the Fourth Symphony (an illusory apotheosis based on a child song Das himmlische Leben (The Heavenly Life) from the collection of Bavarian folk songs Des Knaben Wunderhorn, will be sung by soprano Anna Aglatova, the star of the Bolshoi Theater, a many-times nominee for the Golden Mask Award. Music critics hear in her voice “a sunny brightness and lusciousness, gleaming brilliance and incredible flightiness, clarity, lightness and filigree coloratura, delicately imbued into the semantic content of a role”.