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Russian Romance
Music may have no more passionate voice than that of Sergei Rachmaninov. He bathed his world in the lush harmonies of love. Equally passionate, in ways both electrifying and exciting, is our own Brent Lee, as interpreted by the Detroit Symphony’s principal violist, Alexander Mishnaevski.
Alexander Borodin –
Prince Igor, Overture
Brent Lee –
Ruck and Rill for Electric Viola + Orchestra (world premiere)
Sergei Rachmaninov –
Symphony no. 2
Listen to an excerpt of Rachmaninov's Symphony No. 2
Saturday, December 6, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.
Chrysler Theatre
Instrumentally Speaking – pre-concert talk at 7:00 p.m. inside the Chrysler Theatre
Tickets: $13–$56
John Morris Russell, Conductor
Alexander Mishnaevski, Electric Viola
Alexander Borodin
B. November 12, 1833, St. Petersburg
D. February 27, 1887, St. Petersburg
The world premiere of the full opera was given at St. Petersburg on November 4, 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre. Approx. 10 minutes.
By Dr. Ed Kovarik
Alexander Borodin, the illegitimate son of a Russian nobleman, was trained as a medical doctor and research chemist, and he made a comfortable living as a professor at the St. Petersburg Academy of Medicine (where he had studied) and later at the Women’s Academy of Medicine (which he helped create). From childhood he was largely self-taught in music, learning to play piano, flute and cello; he also composed a certain amount of chamber music and short piano pieces.
In his late twenties (1862) he met Balakirev, four years his junior but already spiritual leader of the group of Russian composers who came to be known as the “Mighty Five.” Balakirev counselled him to write in large forms, and thus encouraged he managed eventually to produce two symphonies and an opera. Each was a long time in coming, however, since Borodin could write only in those few precious moments stolen from his other duties, or as he said—only half-joking—when he was too sick to do anything else. His first symphony took five years; the opera, Prince Igor, was begun around 1870 and left unfinished at his death in 1887. Subsequently the score was whipped into shape by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov, and the opera was premiered at St Petersburg in the fall of 1890.
For the overture Borodin left only a few sketches, but he had improvised a performance at the piano for a circle of friends including Glazunov. Glazunov used what he remembered of this performance (it was based largely on themes from the opera) to reconstruct the overture, adding some ideas of his own when necessary. The overture was first performed at an orchestral concert conducted by Rimsky in the fall of 1887, well ahead of the opera as a whole.
Brent Lee
B. 1964, Wynyard, Saskatchewan
This is the world premiere performance. Approx. 18 minutes.
Brent Lee is a Canadian musician, scholar and educator. He studied at McGill University and later the University of British Columbia, where he completed his doctoral degree in 1999. His compositions range from orchestral music to electroacoustic pieces, and include jazz and incidental music. He has received awards or commissions from CAPAC, SOCAN, the Canada Council, the Alberta Heritage Fund, The Gaudeamus Foundation (The Netherlands), the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, and the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France).
In addition to performances and broadcasts in many countries, several of his works have been commercially recorded. His compositions and improvisations often explore the relationship between acoustic instruments and digital sound processing; this interest has extended to his work as a performing member of a number of improvising ensembles including gems, Strictly Plutonic, and Modus vivendi. In 2002, he accepted a position at the University of Windsor, and served as composer-in-residence with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra from 2003-06. He has been an associate composer of the Canadian Music Centre since 1991.
By Dr. Brent Lee
Ruck and Rill is a concerto for 5-string electric viola and orchestra that integrates the traditional “soloist as hero” paradigm of the romantic concerto with the aesthetics of the space-age extended guitar solo heard in psychedelic rock of the 1970s (Pink Floyd, Jefferson Starship, etc.). I like very much the expansiveness and expressiveness of many of these solos, and I think there are correspondences with my own orchestral style. I also find considerable resonance in the astronautical imagery of psychedelia, specifically with the spaceman / “guitar hero” searching for a home among the stars.
Ruck and Rill is a rather obvious play on words, but the themes described above are nonetheless reflected in these obscure terms. A ruck is a crowd of ordinary persons or things, while a rill is a channel created by a small stream. The term rill is particularly used for the telescopic valleys on the moon (more space imagery), and a ruck may also be an irregular fold in an otherwise even surface. These ideas are woven metaphorically into the texture of the work, especially in the relationship between the soloist and the orchestra.
Ruck and Rill was commissioned by Alexander Mishnaevski and the Windsor Symphony Orchestra with the generous assistance of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
Sergei
Rachmaninoff
B. April 1, 1873, Semyonovo, Russia
D. March 28, 1943, Beverly Hills
This work premiered on February 8, 1908 in St. Petersburg and was conducted by the composer. Approx. 60 minutes.
By Dr. Ed Kovarik
For a long time (and perhaps still) Rachmaninov’s best-known works were the Prelude in C-sharp minor (1893), composed at the age of nineteen, and the Second Piano Concerto of 1901. The success of the latter seemed to sweep away any lingering self-doubts, and after a brief stint as conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Rachmaninov settled down to devote himself wholly to composition. For several winter seasons he sequestered himself in Germany, away from the distractions of family and friends. One of the products of this time is the Second Symphony, written in Dresden in 1907. Later, of course, the family—part of the landed gentry— would lose everything in the Russian Revolution (1917). They would flee to America, and Rachmaninov would be forced to earn his living as a concertizing pianist rather than as a composer.
The Second Symphony represents a transitional stage in the composer’s development, a point where he is beginning to move away from the pure romanticism of his early works towards a leaner and and more acerbic style, as will become more evident in the Third Piano Concerto (1909). The Second Symphony is not yet there, and in particular it tends towards prolixity (read: “long-windedness”), a feature cured by some judicious pruning of repeated passages—as in this performace. Apart from this, however, the symphony reveals great mastery in harmony and thematic development and in the handling of the cyclic principle. It also has, in the opening of the Scherzo, at least one unforgettable tune.
The first two movements of the symphony are in minor keys and are rather gloomy. The themes are limited in range, balanced in motion (rising and falling) and employ prominent half-step (semitone) movement.
The third and fourth movements are a reaction to what has gone before; they are in major keys and decidedly optimistic: the slow third movement in a quiet, lyric fashion and the boisterous finale in open-hearted exuberance.
Alexander Mishnaevski
“Star-caliber musicianship … soulful … virtually flawless playing … intensity, accuracy and a warm, sweet tone … uncanny rapport … technical bravura and virtuosic deftness.” These are just a few of the comments made by critics about the Detroit Symphony Orchestra’s principal violist Alexander Mishnaevski.
Born in Moscow, Mr. Mishnaevski began studying the violin at age six. He changed from violin to viola in the late 1970s, at the suggestion of Isaac Stern, following several master classes. He emigrated to the United States in 1973 after his father decided that the West offered a more promising future. The family left Moscow just as Mishnaevski was preparing for his entrance examination at the prestigious Moscow Conservatory. Unfortunately, Mishnaevski’s father didn’t live to see his son perform on American soil; he passed away in Italy, where the young Mishnaevski and the rest of the family spent eight months awaiting documentation allowing them into the United States.
Mr. Mishnaevski did complete studies at the Central Music School in Moscow prior to his emigration; once in the U.S., he graduated from the renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York City and became an American citizen in 1978.
Mishnaevski joined the Detroit Symphony Orchestra as Principal Violist in 1986; from 1979 through 1985, he was Principal Viola for the Soviet Emigre Orchestra, and played with that group during its tours of North America, South America and Europe. Mishnaevski also held the position of Principal Violist for the New York Chamber Orchestra, the New York Pro Arte Ensemble, Montreal’s McGill Chamber Orchestra and Orquestra Sinfonica de Xalapa in Mexico prior to joining the DSO.
Alexander Mishnaevski has performed in chamber music concerts and in recitals around the world and has collaborated on chamber music projects with eminent players including Isaac Stern, Schlomo Mintz, Joseph Silverstein, Schmuel Ashkenazy, Franz Helmerson, Joseph Swenson and the Colorado Quartet.
As a soloist, Mr. Mishnaevski has appeared with the New York City Symphony, the Oklahoma Symphony, Queens Symphony Orchestra (New York), the New Jersey Symphony, Orquestra Sinfonica de Xalapa, the Taipei Symphony and the Singapore Symphony. He has also performed in Korea and Hong Kong. Locally, he performs with the symphony orchestras of Detroit, Windsor, Southfield, Grosse Pointe and Dearborn.