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Letter of Witness

3K views 2 replies 3 participants last post by  Grizzled Ghost 
#1 ·
For many years, I was and am a regular listener and fan of one of the
great orchestras of our country - the State Academic Symphony
Orchestra of Russia. Outstanding conductors, soloists, unforgettable
concerts ...


I personally knew many of the musicians of the orchestra, and in the
eighties the fate gave me the opportunity for a personal contact with
the great Evgeny Fyodorovich Svetlanov who will always remain my idol!
His name is linked to a special, as many say, "golden period” of the
State Orchestra.The history of the orchestra, as you know, begins in
1936. Most recently, I happened to read a brief, updated history of
the Orchestra that made me extremely puzzled. It listed the names of
the artistic directors of the orchestra: Alexander Hauk (1936-1941),
Nathan Rachlin (1941-1946), Konstantin Ivanov (1946-1965), Evgeny
Svetlanov (1965-2000), Vasily Sinaisky (2000-2002). Further said that
since 2011 the orchestra led by Vladimir Jurowski.



I wonder what happened in the nine years from 2002 to 2011? We all
remember that this time preceded by a difficult period in the history
of our country, which affected many famous creative teams, including
the State Orchestra. After a long war with the Orchestra and with the
scandal, in 2000 the Orchestra left the great E.Svetlanov. Eighteen
months later, after the dismissal of Vasily Sinaisky in 2002, the
orchestra was led by Mark Gorenstein.

Permanent meticulous rehearsals, creative communication with
outstanding performers, participation in major music festivals - all
of this in a short period of time allowed the Orchestra to get to the
highest level of orchestral music making. Outstanding names as:
Mstislav Rostropovich, R. Shchedrin, A.Eshpay, Nikolay Petrov, V.
Tretyakov, D.Matsuev, M.Vengerov, Natalia Gutman, I.Marin, E.Klaas, S.
Sondeckis and others. All of them playing with the Orchestra, with
enthusiasm evaluated his conducting skills. The subscription concerts
of the Moscow Philharmonic, tours around Russia, performances in many
European countries, performances in the USA and Japan were always with
the same success and received high praise in the press. Particularly
significant event in the history of the Orchestra was the honor in
naming the Orchestra after great Evgeny Svetlanov in 2006.And today,
thinking about all this, it is impossible not to note the enormous
merit of Mark Gorenstein, who led the orchestra from 2002 to 2011.

What happened in 2011, when, as now it has become quite clear, by the
instructions of the Ministry of Culture, in the “best” Soviet
traditions, they decided to remove the unwanted person. The
persecution of M. Gorenstein was organized, which ended in
the"rebellion" of the Orchestra, on the "request" of which he was
fired. In any case - all this is now history.

There are objective facts in this history, and I am far from being
able to give the facts their own subjective assessment. But you cannot
just cross out nine (9) years from the biography of the Orchestra, as
it is impossible to delete anything from the biography of the country.
 
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#2 ·
I'm admittedly not well versed in the rich history of Russian orchestras, but I appreciate your comments and find them interesting indeed.

At one point I attempted to untangle the somewhat confusing histories of some of the main Russian orchestras. But with all the shifting politics, the renaming of orchestras over the years, the similar names they sometimes seemed to adopt and (forgive the expression) the game of musical chairs where musicians seemed to desert one orchestra for another based on which was in favor at the moment -- it left me kind of confused. Perhaps some things get lost in translation as well.

Add to this the unfortunate tendency of some second-tier Russian orchestras who tour in the United States to adopt names for marketing purposes that might be described as deceitful. There's an orchestra from St. Petersburg coming to perform in our local hall that the promotional material leads one to believe it's the famous St. Petersburg Philharmonic, when it is in fact not. (This was what led me to try to decipher some of the history of orchestras in Russia in the first place.)

Anyways, I sympathize with your frustration.
 
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