A Rare Russian Treat, Tomorrow on BBC Radio 3

Rozhdestvensky (right) at a rehearsal with Shostakovich and Rostropovich, in 1960.

Few great musicians of the era of Shostakovich survive now, but the legendary conductor Gennadi Rozhdestvensky is still out there, offering a very real link to the greatest of Soviet composers. Rozhdestvensky worked with Shostakovich between the early 1960s and his death in 1975, most notably on the late revival of the opera The Nose. Rozhdestvensky's appearances in the West are relatively rare these days, but he did appear, in Dresden, earlier this year, conducting the first and last Shostakovich symphonies. The concert is broadcast on Radio 3 on Monday 13th November, at 2pm, and will be available for 30 days afterwards for UK users.

Rozhdestvensky leads the Dresden Staatskapelle in tomorrow's broadcast. The orchestra has a fine history with Shostakovich, and recordings are available of them in symphonies conducted by another great Shostakovich maestro, Kirill Kondrashin. Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

BBC Radio 3's Russian Revolution

Looking through the schedules for this week, I note with delight how much time is being given over to Russian music and culture on BBC Radio 3. I then wonder quite how I'm supposed to listen to it all. One programme at a time, I suppose. I've made a list of everything I could, though you'll note that some of these things are now in the past. UK readers can follow the links (for 30 days) to catch up with all that Russian goodness.

Composer of the week continues next week with music from the post-Stalin period. The anniversary (calendar-corrected) of the actual Bolshevik Revolution is marked by a special afternoon discussion on Tuesday of this week.

Sunday 5^th

5pm – The Listening Service on Shostakovich’s 15^th Symphony

5.30pm – Words and Music: Russia after the Revolution

6.45pm – Sunday Feature: Emigranti – 1917 Revisited

7.30pm – Concert of Tchaikovsky from the Verbier Festival

9pm – Drama on 3 – Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons

Monday 6^th

9am – Essential Classics: interview with BBC foreign correspondent Bridget Kendall (all week)

12noon – Composer of the Week: Scriabin and Prokofiev

2pm – Afternoon Concert: Music by Tchaikovsky and Taneyev

7.30pm – Evening Concert: LPO in music by Shostakovich and Rachmaninov

10.45pm – The Essay: Ten Artists that Shook the World (all week)

Tuesday 7^th

6.30am – Breakfast: Live from the Mariinsky Theatre

12noon – Composer of the Week: Mosolov and Roslavets

1pm – Lunchtime Concert: Elisabeth Leonskaja plays Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky

2pm – Breaking Free: A century of Russia culture, live from Lenin’s London office

7.30pm – Evening Concert: Shostakovich and Rachmaninov from the RLPO

10pm – Free Thinking: Man With a Movie Camera

11pm – Late Junction: Russian Experimentalism

Wednesday 8^th

12pm – Composer of the Week: Myaskovsky and Popov

1pm – Lunchtime Concert: Alexei Vlodin

7.30pm – Evening Concert: Cedric Tiberghien plays Prokofiev and Mussorgsky

10pm – Free Thinking: Svetlana Alexievich and Stephen Kotkin

Thursday 9th

12pm – Composer of the Week: Shostakovich and Kabalevsky

1pm – Lunchtime Concert: Anna Vinnitskaya

2pm – Afternoon concert: Rimsky-Korsakov’s Golden Cockerel

7.30pm – Evening Concert: Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov from the RPO

10pm – Free Thinking: Russian Art and Exile

12.30am – Archive recordings of Kirill Kondrashin

Friday 10^th

12pm – Composer of the Week: Prokofiev and Khrennikov

1pm – Lunchtime Concert: Vadym Kholodenko

2pm – Afternoon concert: Music by Tchaikovsky

Saturday 11^th

9am – Record Review: Includes Gerard McBurney on Shostakovich’s 11^th Symphony

12.15pm – Music Matters: Discussion with Teodor Currentzis

3pm – Sound of Cinema: Russian Revolution special

6pm – Opera on 3: Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth

1am – More archive recordings of Kirill Kondrashin

Sunday 12^th

12noon – Private Passions: Interview with Simon Sebag Montefiore

2pm – The Early Music Show: Music form the court of Catherine the Great

7.30pm – Evening Concert: Music by Glazunov and Schnittke

The header image is from the BBC Radio 3 website and is one of a number of designs being used to promote this season. Read more about co-opting propaganda imagery here. Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).

A Berliner Birthday Message to Herbert Blomstedt

Full marks to the Berliner Philarmoniker for this charming video in celebration of conductor Herbert Blomstedt's 90th birthday which he celebrated a few months ago. I saw him conduct earlier this year, and I only hope I'll take a flight of stairs as spryly as him when I'm that age.

Tanks, Catcalls and Correcting a Correction

On August 21st, 1968, star Soviet cellist Mstislav Rostropovich was scheduled to play Dvorak's Cello Concerto at the Royal Albert Hall, and the irony was lost on no one. The day before, half a million Warsaw Pact troops had poured into Czechoslovakia, land of Dvorak's birth, to crush a remarkable flowering of liberal socialism which, in Moscow's eyes, could not be allowed continue. For months, under the leadership of Alexandr Dubcek, Prague had been reforming industry and freedom of speech. Soviet tanks rolling into Czech cities, on August 20th, signaled the end of Moscow's patience.

Rostropovich, alive to the symbolism of his performance of the greatest Czech work for the instrument, reportedly played with tears in his eyes. On stage beside him were the Soviet conductor Yevgeny Svetlanov, and the USSR State Symphony Orchestra. The mood in the hall was electric, though as the performance began, the protests which threatened to drown out the music subsided. The concert, which concluded with Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony, has gone down in legend as one of the 20th century's most remarkable.

These sort of events always attract a certain degree of myth. Did tears really stream down Slava's face? Did anti-Soviet protesters really drown out the music? A letter to BBC Music Magazine, printed in their new December issue, sought to correct this one. No, Victor and Lilian Hochhauser, the impresarios who arranged the concert, firmly state in relation to the second. They write:

"As we were responsible for negotiating the visit of the cellist Mstislav Rostropotvich and the USSR State Symphony Orchestra to the BBC Proms on 21 August 1968 and subsequently to the Edinburgh Festival, we wish to point out the inaccuracies in Peter Haydn Pike's letter (September)."

They continue:

"In view of the Soviet invasion into Prague, we were all expecting trouble, but there was absolutely no interruption during Rostropovich's emotionally charged performance of the Dvorak Cello Concerto, no 'catcalls' to drown out the Shostakovich symphony, and the concert was broadcast in full."

The concert was broadcast, and the two pieces were released on CD, the Dvorak by BBC Legends and the Shostakovich on a separate disc by ICA Classics. Trouble is - there are interruptions, and there are catcalls. Hecklers threaten to hold up the start of Dvorak's Concerto, though they stop before the first note is heard. Things are different, though, in the Shostakovich. Hecklers yell, though it's not clear what, and the first, quiet bars of the Symphony are lost in a melee of protest and lots of shushing. (The first movement is not to be found on Youtube; Spotify users can find the recording there).

I'm not taking aim at the Hochhausers here, who've mixed with the legends of 20th century classical music and without whom London's concert scene would have been much the poorer. But memory's a funny thing, isn't it?

I took a pic of the page in question. Also, you can enjoy the "gems" from Twitter and Facebook.

The header picture is credited to "YouTube", though I suspect they didn't take it. Any copyrighted material is included as "fair use" for critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s).