CBSO at Symphony Hall
February 14
Andris Nelsons conducts the CBSO in a fascinating programme of conflict.
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War and Revolution opens with a first half of rarely-heard works by Elgar, written during the First World War for charitable events supporting the embattled nations suffering under German depredations, and continues with the powerful Eleventh Symphony of Shostakovich.
This is a graphic depiction of the massacre of unarmed workmen in the square of St Petersburg’s Winter Palace on January 9, 1905, as they demonstrated for greater democratic representation. More than a thousand were hacked down by the Tsar’s forces, and the music depicts the scene atmospherically and brutally.
It’s ironic that Shostakovich could only dare to compose this music after the death of Josef Stalin, himself equally as despotic as the Tsardom he emulated after its overthrow.
Birmingham Conservatoire
Centenary Square
The Conservatoire is promoting a series of events centred upon the centenary of the death of the enigmatic, voluptuary composer Alexander Skryabin, born in 1872 – on the Russian Orthodox Christmas Day, as he used proudly to proclaim.
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During his piano student years Skryabin was a class-mate of Rachmaninov, but their paths soon diverged once they developed into composers. Where Rachmaninov was patrician and austere (though how glorious are his music’s results), Skryabin, embracing the cult of theosophy which held that knowledge of God could only be achieved through ecstasy, became obsessed with the sensual in music.
He constructed a “mystic” chord, he dreamed of combining musical sounds with a colour spectrum, and he even conceived perfumed combinations of sight and sound which would cataclysmically create a new Nirvana as his12-year projected Mysterium received its performance in an Indian temple. Perhaps fortunately for us today, this self-styled new Prometheus passed to another world before he could bring his vast project to fruition.
But what remains of his music is persuasive and compelling, combining the poetry of Chopin with hints of a futuristic freedom of language, and this will clearly emerge as the next few days unfold.
Friday, February 13
The Birmingham Conservatoire Symphony Orchestra is joined by soloist Ashok Gupta for Skryabin’s Piano Concerto in F sharp minor (now there’s a rarefied key for a start). Michael Seal conducts, completing the programme with the youthful Shostakovich’s cock-snooking First Symphony, its student anarchy worlds away from the grim utterances of the Eleventh Symphony.
Monday, February 16
Rachmaninov makes an appearance in a lunchtime free recital from Malcolm Wilson and Philip Martin, playing his Suite no.2 for two pianos and the grippingly vibrant Symphonic Dances.
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Tuesday, February 17
We can hear two-piano music by Skryabin himself, performed by the popular duo of Katharine Lam and Duncan Honeybourne, both Conservatoire alumni who have reached great heights both in terms of performance and musical education. They are followed the same afternoon by Julian Jacobson, playing Skryabin’s Poem and Etude, and the Piano Sonata no.6 by another contemporary, Sergei Prokofiev.
Also on Tuesday lunchtime brings another composer into the frame, Igor Stravinsky (whose Rite of Spring in 1913 had already shattered the musical world in a way Skryabin, as he plotted cosmic destruction, could never have dreamed). Peter Donohoe plays Stravinsky’s complete piano works, including the devilish transcription of three movements from Petrushka, in what promises to be an amazing recital.
Wednesday, February 18
Peter Donohoe will perform another recital this time ten of Skryabin’s piano sonatas on what is almost certainly a rare opportunity to hear them all together.
Thursday, February 19
Here you can hear the complete Skryabin piano preludes over three sessions when over 30 Conservatoire students juxtapose those works with pieces by a cornucopia of the composer’s contemporaries.
Friday, February 20
Nearing its conclusion, this Skryabin and the Russians Festival brings the acclaimed soprano Susan Gritton to the Adrian Boult Hall when she is accompanied by Daniel Browell in a programme of songs by Rachmaninov, Medtner (yet another contemporary), and the greatest Skryabin contemporary of them all, Tchaikovsky.
- CBSO events on 0121 780 3333
- Birmingham Conservatoire on 0121 245 4455.