Concert The State Borodin Quartet. Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Schubert World famous Mariinsky Ballet and Opera Theatre - Opera and Concert Hall
Schedule for The State Borodin Quartet. Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Schubert 2022
Composer: Peter Tchaikovsky Composer: Alexander Borodin Composer: Franz Schubert Orchestra: The State Borodin Quartet
Orchestra: Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra
The State Borodin
Quartet
The State Borodin Quartet comprising: Ruben Agaronian (first violin)
Sergei Lomovsky (second violin) Igor Naidin (viola)
Vladimir Balshin (cello)
PROGRAMME: Pyotr Tchaikovsky String
Quartet No 1 in D Major, Op. 11
Alexander Borodin 3rd movement (Nocturne) from String
Quartet No 2 in D Major
Franz Schubert String Quartet in D Minor Der Tod und das
Mädchen, D. 810
The State Borodin Quartet is a unique phenomenon, not just
in the history of Russian music but of the entire world. This
legendary ensemble has won a reputation as a leader
in international quartet music, and the Quartet’s phenomenally
extensive creativity was first commented upon by the Guinness Book of
Records as far back as 1995. The Borodin Quartet recently marked
sixty-five years since its formation. “Four equals. Each of them different. Each
of them great. A theatre of four performers,” an epithet afforded to
the quartet by Austria’s Volksstimme newspaper, could grace
a review of any concert given by the “Borodinians” no matter which
musicians are under the spotlight, be they from the distant or recent
past or even the present day. The history of this outstanding
ensemble dates back to 1945 when, in the chamber music class of
Professor Mikhail Terian at the Moscow Conservatoire, a string quartet
emerged comprising Rostislav Dubinsky (first violin), Vladimir Rabei (second
violin), Yuri Nikolaevich (viola) and Mstislav Rostropovich (cello),
the latter soon to be succeeded by Valentin Berlinsky. Unlike other
student ensembles, the musicians of what was to become the Borodin
Quartet felt like an integral orchestra even while still students at
the Conservatoire and they resolved to dedicate themselves to chamber
music. In 1946 the quartet, then still a student ensemble, became
affiliated with the Moscow Philharmonic (the first concert took place
on 10). Soon Vladimir Rabei and Yuri Nikolaevich were succeeded by Nina
Barshai and Rudolf Barshai. From its very first years, the quartet
stunned audiences with the sheer variety of its repertoire. Alongside
classical quartets the musicians essentially immediately began to include
works by contemporary Soviet composers in their programmes. In just
five seasons they performed roughly one hundred such pieces of music. Composers
whose works the quartet’s musicians performed included Sergei Prokofiev,
Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitry Kabalevsky, Mieczysław Weinberg, Boris Tchaikovsky,
Herman Galynin, Yuri Levitin, Nikolai Peiko, Vissarion Shebalin, Edison Denisov
and Alfred Schnittke among others. The quartet was the ensemble chosen
to premiere many works, which were also dedicated to the orchestra.
The ensemble’s programmes witnessed the birth of Soviet chamber music.
In 1955, following a dazzling performance of works by Alexander
Porfiryevich Borodin, the ensemble was named in his honour –
the Borodin Quartet – and today it is famed throughout the world
as a synonym for outstanding performing skills. The ensemble’s second
decade (1955–1965) proved to be a time of impetuous creative growth for
the musicians. By this time the second violinist was now Yaroslav
Alexandrov and the violist Dmitry Shebalin, son of the composer
Vissarion Yakovlevich Shebalin. The new ensemble (Rostislav Dubinsky,
Yaroslav Alexandrov, Dmitry Shebalin and Valentin Berlinsky) carried on for over
twenty years until the mid 1970s. Dmitry Vissarionovich Shebalin performed
with the quartet for forty-three years in addition to being
a professor at the Moscow Conservatoire where he trained myriad
renowned chamber music performers. In 1955 the Borodin Quartet
travelled abroad for the first time. Over the course of ten years
the ensemble appeared in twenty countries including Czechoslovakia,
Germany, Italy, Sweden, Finland, the USA, Canada, Australia and New
Zealand. All of the ensembles’ concerts met with great critical acclaim. At
the time, the reviewer of Australia’s Nation newspaper wrote
that “The Borodin Quartet is not four separate instruments but rather one
with sixteen strings.” People began to speak of the “Borodinians” as one of
the finest ensembles in the world. In 1950
the quartet began to collaborate with Sviatoslav Richter, and this
collaboration was to last more than forty years. This outstanding musician
performed eighty-three concerts with the ensemble in addition to
recording fourteen works including quintets by Dvořák, Shostakovich, Franck,
Schumann, Brahms, Reger and Copeland. These concerts and recordings are to be
counted among the finest achievements in world art. In 1975
the quartet’s “first violinist” Rostislav Dubinsky left the USSR,
having served as the ensemble’s artistic inspiration for thirty years since
its very inception. It is with his name that the emergence of
the “Borodinians’” unique musical style is inextricably linked. His
departure was, quite naturally, a deep blow for the ensemble. It was
at roughly at the same time that violinist Yaroslav Alexandrov was
compelled to make his exit from the quartet due to ill health. At
the time, many said that the Borodin Quartet was destined to vanish.
The ensemble itself, however, thought otherwise. And following a brief
interval, the revival of tours abroad by the quartet demonstrated that
it had succeeded in retaining its brilliant performing qualities. Young
musician Mikhail Kopelman, then already the leader of the Moscow
Philharmonic, was appointed the orchestra’s first violinist. Second
violinist Yaroslav Alexandrov was succeeded by Andrei Abramenkov who for many
years had played in the Moscow Chamber Orchestra under Rudolf Barshai.
The new musicians of the “Borodinians” re-recorded Borodin’s quartets
and this recording was hailed in Great Britain as “Best Recording of
the Year.” Of special note in the history of
the ensemble is its collaboration with Dmitry Shostakovich which lasted
more than thirty years. The “Borodinians” performed his quartets from
the very outset of their careers to the composer’s dying days, always
remaining in close contact with him. Shostakovich’s last public appearance
as a pianist (at a festival of contemporary music commemorating
Shostakovich’s work in Gorky on 23 February 1964) saw
a performance of his own Piano Quintet together with the musicians of
the Borodin Quartet. The “Borodinians” have elevated
Shostakovich’s fifteen quartets to the same august standing as such great
quartet music as the sixteen quartets by Beethoven. It is thanks to them
that Shostakovich’s quartets have been performed thousands of times across
the globe. Following Shostakovich’s death in 1975, work on
the composer’s music did not cease. “The Borodin Quartet has
Shostakovich in its blood, so to speak…” wrote Donald Rosenberg
in a Cleveland newspaper. The vast cycle All of
Shostakovich’s Quartets has been performed by the musicians (beginning
in 1980) dozens of times in Moscow as well as in towns throughout
Russia and internationally, taking the ensemble to London, Madrid, Venice,
Amsterdam, San Francisco, Cologne, Frank am Main, Vienna, Lisbon, Zurich,
Helsinki, Paris and New York. In 1981 to mark the seventy-fifth
anniversary of the birth of Shostakovich, the “Borodinians” ran
a festival of chamber music, hitherto unprecedented in terms of scale.
The 1986 recording of all fifteen of Shostakovich’s quartets by
the “Borodinians” to mark eighty years since the composer’s birth was
awarded the Ministry of Culture of the USSR’s Golden Disc.
Not a single chamber quartet had received this award prior to
the Borodin Quartet. This recording was subsequently reissued by
the world’s leading recording companies, among them EMI and BMG.
In 1987 on the initiative of the ensemble’s oldest member
Valentin Berlinsky a Dmitry Shostakovich String Quartet Competition was
organised – the first international string quartet competition
in the history of the country that has provided a vital
starting point for many music ensembles that are highly acclaimed today.
The early 1990s once again saw a gradual revival and rejuvenation
of the ensemble. In 1996 Ruben Aharonian was appointed first violinist
in the quartet and Dmitry Shebalin was succeeded by Igor Naidin as
violist. In 2007 Vladimir Balshin replaced Valentin Berlinsky and,
in 2011, Andrei Abramenkov was succeeded by Sergei Lomovsky.
Highlights of the quartet’s career include over six thousand concerts
in the USSR, Russia, countries throughout Europe, Asia, America and
Australia attended by almost a million people, hundreds of recordings that
have received prestigious awards and appearances at numerous music festivals
in Russia and abroad (December Evenings of Sviatoslav Richter, Russian
Winter, The Art of the Quartet and festivals in cities
including Salzburg, Edinburgh, Tours, Versailles, Zagreb, Aldeburgh and London
among others). The “Borodinians” have been joined by such acclaimed
soloists of past and present as Konstantin Igumnov, Heinrich Neuhaus, Alexander
Goldenweiser, Maria Yudina, Lev Oborin, Yakov Zak, Emil Gilels, David Oistrakh,
Leonid Kogan, Sviatoslav Knushevitsky, Mstislav Rostropovich, Bella Davidovich,
Eliso Virsaladze, Naum Shtarkman, Nikolai Petrov, Mikhail Pletnev, Vladimir
Krainev, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Lyudmila Berlinskaya, Viktor Tretiakov, Yuri
Bashmet, Natalia Gutman, Christoph Eschenbach, András Schiff, Truls Mørk,
Michael Collins, Mario Brunello, Sabine Meyer, Oleg Maisenberg and Alexei
Lyubimov. Over the years the ensemble has performed quartets and
various pieces by dozens of composers ranging from Luigi Boccherini and Joseph
Haydn to the music of Alfred Schnittke and other late
20th century composers. The quartet’s discs have been
released by companies in Great Britain, Germany, Poland, Sweden, Japan, New
Zealand, Russia and the USA. The orchestra has recorded more than one
hundred works. The quartet retains its outstanding professional level,
signature style, unique sound and the unsurpassed art of performing
ensemble music. Changes have altered neither the intense nature of
the “Borodinians’” concert appearances nor the scale of their
performances. One of the quartet’s most significant achievements was
a recording of all of Beethoven’s quartets on Great Britain’s Chandos
label (2005), released to commemorate the ensemble’s sixtieth
anniversary. Much of the praise for the succession and maintenance
of traditions within the quartet is owed to one of its founders –
Valentin Alexandrovich Berlinsky (1925–2008). Valentin Berlinsky said that when
the ensemble was founded “the idea was for the quartet to exist for
all time.” Valentin Berlinsky himself played with the Borodin Quartet for
sixty-two years. He devoted much time and energy to teaching, education and
organisational work; he was a professor at the Gnesins’ Russian
Academy of Music, organiser and Chairman of the Jury of
the Shostakovich Quartet Competition, Artistic Director of the Andrei
Sakharov International Art Festival in Nizhny Novgorod and Chairman of
the Board of Trustees of the Russian Performing Arts Foundation.
The ensemble’s anniversary year in 2010 saw performances
in such prestigious international venues as the Concertgebouw
in Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Musikverein
in Vienna, the Cité de la musique in Paris, the Philharmonie
in Cologne, Wigmore Hall in London, the Lincoln Center
in New York and major halls in Australia and New Zealand.
The Telegraph listed the ensemble’s London concert
in its “Top 10 Classical Music Events of 2010.” That year
the quartet also travelled across the entire globe for the third
time in its history. The ensemble continues to collaborate with
various recording companies. For its anniversary year Great Britain’s Onyx
released a disc of works by Russian composers including Borodin, Stravinsky
and Myaskovsky, while 2011 saw the release of a series of six
Russian Quartets by Haydn that received rave reviews by
The Strad and Gramophone magazines. This year
ICA Classics also released a DVD of a live broadcast of
a concert in Paris featuring quartets by Schubert and Brahms.
The State Borodin Quartet is a recipient of the Mikhail
Glinka State Prize of the RSFSR (1968), the State Prize of
the USSR (1986), the Mayor of Moscow Prize (1998) and
the State Prize of Russia (2001).
Schedule for The State Borodin Quartet. Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Schubert 2022
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