February 8, 2024 | Svetlanov Hall of the MIPAC
Conductor – Arsenty Tkachenko
Tchaikovsky. Symphony No. 1 in G minor ("Winter Daydreams"), Op. 13
Sviridov. "The Blizzard" suite – musical illustrations for Pushkin's novel

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“Russian winter in music” is a program composed by conductor Arsenty Tkachenko for those who love both music and painting. Under his baton the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia will play Tchaikovsky's First Symphony (aka “Winter Daydreams”) and musical illustrations by Sviridov to Pushkin's short story “The Blizzard”. To visualize the classical gems there will be video projections of winter landscapes on the walls of the Svetlanov Hall in the Moscow Performing Arts Center.

Tchaikovsky's First Symphony became the first score of the lyrical-psychological genre in Russian music. This singular elegiac confession was titled “Winter Daydreams” by the composer himself, who also named its first two movements as “Dreams of a Winter Journey” and “Land of Desolation, Land of Mists”, thus defining the images and ideas that inspired him, such as an endless Russian landscape and the journey theme so admired by Romanticism. The author dedicated his work to the eminent musician Nikolai Rubinstein, founder of the Moscow Conservatory. It was Rubinstein who persuaded Tchaikovsky to turn to the main orchestral brand which the composer would describe later on as “the most lyrical of all music forms”.

The musical illustrations to Pushkin's short story “The Blizzard” is the most known work by Georgy Sviridov. In 1964 he wrote the soundtrack to the film “The Blizzard”, based on Pushkin's short story of the same name, as commissioned by the film director Vladimir Basov. The story in the film is depicted among beautiful landscapes, and Sviridov's music plays a very important role in creating the romantic atmosphere of the Russian way of life in the 19^th century. In 1973 Sviridov used the soundtrack for writing a symphonic suite of 9 episodes, the most popular of which are “Waltz”, “Romance”, “Troika” and “Winter Road”.