On the eve of the X Moscow Easter Festival. Rachmaninoff. Prokofiev (Concert)

Sergei Rachmaninoff. The Bells, symphonic poem
Soloists: Mlada Khudoley (soprano), Sergei Semishkur (tenor) and Yevgeny Nikitin (baritone)

Sergei Prokofiev. Alexander Nevsky, cantata
Soloist: Olga Borodina (mezzo-soprano)

Mariinsky Theatre Chorus and Symphony Orchestra
Principal Chorus Master: Andrei Petrenko

Conductor: Valery Gergiev

The poem The Bells for mixed chorus, three soloists (soprano, tenor and baritone) and orchestra was completed by Rachmaninoff in 1913. Interestingly, Rachmaninoff had initially planned to compose a symphony, but it so happened that at the time he received an anonymous letter with a request to read Balmont’s translation of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem which was attached to the letter and which, the letter stated, was eminently suitable for music and should be of interest to the composer. The name of the letter’s author only became known after Rachmaninoff’s death – it was the cellist Mikhail Bukinik’s student Maria Danilova.
The content of the poem did, in fact, immediately rouse Rachmaninoff’s interest and his initial idea changed instantaneously. The Bells is reminiscent of a symphony in terms of structure (it is a four-part cycle), although it is closer to a cantata. The entire work, from the first movement to the last, is an irrepressible advance towards catastrophe, from light towards darkness. Each of the four movements creates a scene of human life, from birth to death, and in each the chime of the bells reigns supreme.
The poem The Bells bears the composer’s dedication “To my friend Willem Mengelberg and his Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.”

The cantata Alexander Nevsky was composed on the basis of music for the eponymous film by Sergei Eisenstein which was released in 1938. The exceptional success that accompanied the film, comparable to that of Chapaev, allowed Prokofiev to create a work independent from the film music and take it to the stage of the concert hall, changing almost nothing in it apart from several details of the orchestration.
The “picture-like” and “visible” nature of the images is one of the typical features of Prokofiev’s music in general and of this work in particular. It is as if the audience “sees” what is happening onstage, even if behind the musical impressions there is no sense of watching a cinema film. In the structure of the cantata itself one can detect features of a symphonic poem in which the first movement is a prologue and the second and third are an exposition that embodies two opposing forces: that of the Russian heroes (represented by Alexander) and that of the Order of Livonian Knights. The fourth and fifth movements form a section in which the fifth movement – the battle scene on Lake Chudskoe – is the undoubted peak and central piece of the cantata as a whole. The sixth movement is an episode of lament for fallen warriors, the only solo section (for mezzo-soprano) in the entire work. And lastly there is the seventh movement – the finale, a reprise, the celebration and triumph of the Russian warriors who are victorious.
Pavel Velikanov