Andrei KOROBEINIKOV – piano
State Academic Choir “Latvija”
Conductor Andris POGA
Programme:
Ādolfs Ābele Symphonic poem “Vision”
Sergei PROKOFIEV – Concerto No. 2 for piano and orchestra in G minor, Op. 16
Maurice RAVEL – Ballet “Daphnis et Chloé”
The impulse for Ādolfs Ābele’s “Vision” was born in St Petersburg on a bitter winter’s day, and contemporaries tell us that the composer wanted to weave the voices of birds of paradise into this music. Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto bears witness to the emotional upheaval of a young man – a beautiful and intensely dramatic example of the genre. And in Ravel’s ballet everything unfolds as if in play: seduction, abduction, pirates, nymphs, and two young people who, with a truly French tenderness, blossom into a love of their own.
A performance of Ravel’s ballet is unthinkable without the high-calibre presence of the “Latvija” choir, while the soloist in Prokofiev’s piano concerto will be the Russian pianist Andrei Korobeinikov – the owner of a singular and vivid musical talent, and also a poet, a lawyer and even, in a certain sense, a polar explorer. Latvian audiences will remember his performance of a Chopin piano concerto in the spring of 2014 in Rēzekne and Rīga with the orchestra Kremerata Baltica. In his review Armands Znotiņš praised the pianist and expressed the hope that Korobeinikov would return to Latvia – and now that wish is about to come true.
Ādolfs Ābele’s “Vision” is one of the most beautiful pearls of Latvian symphonic music – it is hard to imagine a lovelier opening to a new season. The composer Jēkabs Poruks recalled: ““Vision” tells of a wonderful spring that has never been and never can be; of birds of paradise, of the longing for great happiness and the sorrow that it is only a phantom. Students of the psychology of creation may be interested to know that this vision first sounded in the composer’s mind on a cold winter’s night on Yelagin Island (in St Petersburg), in the silence of the snowfields.”
Not only Ābele’s “Vision” comes from St Petersburg, but also the pianist Andrei Korobeinikov – born in Moscow, he now lives in the Northern Palmyra and travels the world giving concerts. By his own reckoning he has appeared in at least 40 countries, playing among other places in the leading halls of Moscow, St Petersburg, Warsaw, Berlin, Budapest, Brussels, Paris, London, Los Angeles and Tokyo. A laureate of many international competitions. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory and the Royal College of Music in London. Among his idols he names Beethoven, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Gilels, Sofronitsky, Gulda, Yudina, David Oistrakh, Furtwängler, Solti, Abbado, Mravinsky, Lemeshev, Chaliapin and Quasthoff. Andrei Korobeinikov also holds a law degree and is an internationally recognised specialist in Esperanto. On the pianist’s website you can read Korobeinikov’s poems.
Sergei Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto is an absolute masterpiece. It was, first of all, highly valued by the composer himself, who often played it in his own concerts. At the premiere, however, part of the audience voiced its indignation rather loudly and some even walked out of the hall. To its own time the work may indeed have seemed startling, yet there was no shortage of those who understood at once what this music was worth. Prokofiev’s close friend the composer Nikolai Myaskovsky, for instance, on receiving the score wrote to Sergei Sergeyevich: “Last night I read your concerto (already lying down) and all but tore myself apart with delight – I jumped about, I shouted. If I had had neighbours, I should almost certainly have been reckoned among the mad. You are an angel!” The strict and demanding Pierre Boulez considered it one of Prokofiev’s highest achievements. Sviatoslav Richter counted the concerto among his three pianistic passions, alongside Beethoven’s Sonata No. 29 and the Brahms variations. Prokofiev dedicated his Second Piano Concerto to a man of tragic fate – his fellow student Maximilian Schmidthof.
The second half of the concert brings Maurice Ravel’s ballet “Daphnis et Chloé”. The ballet is based on a libretto by the legendary choreographer Michel Fokine, which in turn draws on the famous novel “Daphnis and Chloe” by the second-century Greek writer Longus – the goatherd Daphnis and the shepherdess Chloe gain their first experience of a relationship, growing through dangers and trials from inexperienced adolescents into ardently loving young people. The ballet with Fokine’s choreography was staged by Diaghilev’s “Ballets Russes”, and the premiere took place in Paris in 1912. The music is vivid, generous, sensuous and erotically stirring. At the end, of course, comes a happy ending and an imposing bacchanal.
As usual, before the big evening concerts, at 6 p.m. in the White Hall of the Great Guild, listeners are invited to attend the “Pre-concert talks”. On 25 September Orests Silabriedis’s guest will be Ilze Rūmniece, Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Latvia and founder of its Centre for Hellenic Studies.
Photo (c) Toms Grīnbergs