March 3, 2026 | Zaryadye Concert Hall
Soloist – Anna Aglatova, soprano
Conductor – Alexander Soloviev
Debussy. Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune) for orchestra
Ravel. "Shéhérazade", three poems for voice and orchestra
Debussy. "The Sea" ("La Mer"), three symphonic sketches for orchestra
Chausson. Symphony No. 1 in B-flat major, Op. 20
On March 3, the Zaryadye Concert Hall will host the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia under the baton of Alexander Soloviev, principal conductor and music director of the Mikhailovsky Theater, professor of the Saint-Petersburg Conservatory. At some time earlier, he was a member of the NPR's conductor-training program and then headed the group becoming a permanent artistic partner of the orchestra. He has concocted the coming concert of works by popular French composers written in the vein of French Impressionism.
The NPR will play the symphonic prelude L'aprè-midi d'un faune (Afternoon of a Faun) by Claude Debussy based on the antique eclogue by poet-symbolist Stéphane Mallarmé and also his symphonic triptych La mer (“The Sea”). Debussy’s Faun opened a short era of Impressionism in music. In Mallarmé's poem a forest spirit (a Faun) tired of visions of nymphs and naiads chased by him is fallen into a sleep that satisfies his long-waited desire. In the fanciful playing of the flute he gives way to his dreams. Debussy's three musical sea images are connected with his numerous recollections of the sea (whether it was La Manche, the Atlantic Ocean or the Mediterranean Sea) or with fine arts of his contemporaries or predecessors such as prints and paintings by Hokusai.
The concert will end with the only symphony by Ernest Chausson whose bright artistic life got drastically broken off in full bloom. Following the compositional model of his teacher Cesar Franck's D-moll Symphony, Chausson created a dark, permeated with deep colors symphony-drama ending with a pathetic apotheosis. The middle movement of the Symphony is an artfully constructed orchestral piece with exquisite harmonies and tonal ideas inspired by Wagner's music.
The concert will also feature The Bolshoi's star Anna Aglatova who will sing the solo part in Maurice Ravel’s Sheherazade vocal cycle (text by Tristan Klingsor) which follows, in an original way, the traditions of Russian musical orientalism just as earlier did Rimsky-Korsakov in his symphonic suite of the same name.
The first poem “Asia” calls for images of the mysterious continent enticing into travels to far lands. The second song “A Magic Flute” (or “Enchanted Flute”) tells about a young slave, serving her sleeping lord, who hears a flute sounds of her lover sending her an air kiss, And in the third story a kind-hearted host invites a beautiful traveler to drink some wine and have a rest in his house, but the latter is deaf to his invitation,