March 2, 2025 | Svetlanov Hall of the MIPAC
Waltzes of Love
Conductor – Arsenty Tkachenko
Mozart. Overture from 'Le nozze di Figaro' (The Marriage Of Figaro)
Lanner. Die Romantiker Walzer
Kreisler. Liebesfreud (Love's Joy); Liebesleid (Love's Sorrow)
Soloist – Timur Pirverdiev, violin
Mascagni. Intermezzo from 'Cavalleria Rusticana' ('Rustic Chivalry')
J. Strauss II. Frühlingsstimmen ('Spring's Voices'), op. 410
Gounod. Waltz from the opera 'Faust'
Chopin – Glazunov. Waltz in C-sharp minor (from 'Chopiniana' ballet)
Gulda – Strelnikov. Aria
Tchaikovsky. Polonaise and Waltz from the opera 'Eugene Onegin'
Tchaikovsky. Waltz from the ballet 'Sleeping Beauty'
Prokofiev. Waltz from the ballet 'Cinderella'
Gavrilin. Tarantella and Grand Waltz from the ballet 'Anyuta'
Khachaturian. Waltz from 'Masquerade Suite'
Artemyev. Waltz at the Ball from 'The Barber of Siberia'
Sviridov. Waltz and Romance from 'The Snowstorm'
Doga. Waltz from 'My Sweet and Tender Beast'
On the eve of the International Women's Day the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia and conductor Arsenty Tkachenko are offering to the audience a program devoted to Waltz. Once a humble Austro-Hungarian dance in a few years turned from a folk one into urban and incited a real pandemic in Europe. After years of persecution and even full ban in some countries, it managed to steal into aristocratic households becoming an indelible part of lavish balls, while in the 1930s it had a kind of rebirth.
The first wave of Waltz popularity came in 1815 during the famous Vienna Congress. All over Vienna – in squares, parks and restaurants – the city authorities arranged dance parties to distract citizens from political contentions. Waltz got loved by people and brought fame to Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss I. Johann Strauss II, following his father, managed to raise the mundane intonations to the level of High Art and won the title of the Waltz King.
With time many waltzes have taken honored places in the treasury of music classics, merging popular and academic spheres. Here belong waltzes by Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Prokofiev, Sviridov, Khachaturian. Lively and gentle, light and lyrical, sparkling and moody, Waltz has always been and still is the symbol of Romanticism, drawn in the beauty of love.
Director Arsenty Tkachenko, giving due credit to the beautiful dance, first presented “Waltz as the Mirror of the Epoch” program in the spring of 2021. He put for himself and the orchestra an unordinary artistic task: to show the sense of style and the universalism of performing while displaying the development of Waltz - the king of ballrooms – in various historical epochs, how it had been seen in sundry countries, what had been the role of waltzes in theater or films.
The new program “Waltzes of Love” will feature popular dance miniatures of Russian and foreign composers created within two centuries, including Viennese gems by Strauss II, violin pieces by Kreisler, waltzes from operas and ballets and masterstrokes of film soundtracks by Eduard Artemyev and Evgeny Doga.