Name: Vienna Philharmonic 1 Valery Gergiev
Start: 2012-07-29T00:00:00.000Z
End: 2012-07-30T00:00:00.000Z
Location: Großes Festspielhaus

Organization

Conductor

Valery Gergiev

Singer

Tenor

Sergei Semishkur

Chorus master

Ernst Raffelsberger

Salzburger Festspiele

Others

Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus

Orchestra

Wiener Philharmoniker

Vienna Philharmonic 1  Valery Gergiev

Salzburg

Austria

Großes Festspielhaus

The opening concert of the Salzburg Festival, widely considered the most prestigious festival in the world, is traditionally a high profile event. In 2012, Valery Gergiev conducted the Vienna Philharmonic and conducted a program of outstanding works by Russian composers:

Stravinsky, Symphony of Psalms

Mussorgsky, Songs and Dances of Death (orchestration and interludes by Alexander Raskatov)

Prokofiev, Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, Op. 100

In his Psalms Symphony, Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) set the Latin translation of the Old Testament Psalms 38, 39 and 150 to music. Choir and orchestra are used here on an equal footing, with the sophisticated orchestration (wind instruments, low strings, percussion instruments and two pianos) providing fascinating sound impressions. The term "symphony" refers only to the sequence of three movements and not to the compositional form of the individual parts. The Psalms Symphony, composed in 1930, is one of Stravinsky's most impressive and popular works.

The cycle "Songs and Dances of Death" by Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) can be heard in the arrangement by the Russian composer Alexander Raskatov for tenor and orchestra. The soloist in the four sombre, extraordinary poem settings about life and death is the Russian tenor Sergei Semishkur, who has been a member of the ensemble at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg since 2007 and has played a number of major roles such as Rodolfo (La Bohème), Hoffmann (Les contes d'Hoffmann) or Lensky (Eugene Onegin) sings. In addition, Semishkur performs regularly as an opera and concert soloist in Europe and the USA.

After the first, the "Symphonie classique", the Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, Op. 100, is the most popular of the seven symphonies by Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953). It was created during the Second World War in the summer of 1944 on a country estate belonging to the Soviet Union of Composers, to which artists such as Shostakovich, Kabalevsky and Khachaturian had also retreated - Prokofiev to such successful works as the ballet "Romeo and Juliet", the Second Violin Concerto and the film music had inspired "Alexander Newsky". Prokofiev himself called the B-flat major symphony a "song to free and happy people", while Sviatoslav Richter wrote after the Moscow premiere in January 1945, conducted by the composer: " The Fifth Symphony reflects his completed inner maturity and his retrospect ... He looks down on his life and all that was from on high. There's something Olympic about it."

Valery Gergiev is a "superstar" among the conductors of our time. His name can be found at every major opera house and concert hall in the world, and an extensive discography documents his versatility as a conductor of opera and symphonic music. Born in Moscow in 1953 to Ossetian parents, Gergiev became director of the famous Kirov (Mariinsky) Theater in St. Petersburg at the age of 35 and, with his boundless energy, restored the opera house to the glory of the old days. He founded numerous festivals and regularly conducts at the Metropolitan Opera New York; From 1995 to 2008 he was also chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and since 2007 he has also conducted the London Symphony Orchestra.
Gergiev made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in 1997 with "Boris Godunow" and has since performed there regularly in operas and concerts - most recently with the World Orchestra for Peace, which he conducted.

Opening concert of the Salzburg Festival: Concert Various

Public

Concert

Approved

With four opera productions and its concert cycle, the Vienna Philharmonic once again forms the centre of the Salzburg Festival. This year, its concerts bring the musicians not only to the Grosses Festspielhaus, where they will be heard under the baton of four of the most important conductors of our times, but – with smaller forces – also to the Main Auditorium of the Mozarteum.

The work which opens the series of the Philharmonic’s concerts also builds a bridge to the Ouverture spirituelle: Valery Gergiev conducts Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, a work that is as unusual as it is haunting, setting three psalms from the Old Testament to music. The rest of the programme is also Russian: Modest Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death will be performed in a version for high voice, with the Russian tenor Sergei Semishkur. The programme closes with Sergey Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5.

The concerts conducted by Mariss Jansons are dedicated to the second half of the 19th century: even in his early work Don Juan, based on a poem by Nikolaus Lenau, the 24-year-old Richard Strauss proved his full mastery of the genre of the symphonic poem. This will be juxtaposed with the First Symphony by one of the most prominent protagonists of absolute music, Johannes Brahms. In between, the audience is treated to Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck-Lieder, steeped in the atmosphere of his Tristan, performed by the outstanding Swedish soprano Nina Stemme.

Riccardo Muti devotes himself to Franz Liszt’s symphonic poems Les Préludes and Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe as well as the Messe solennelle by Hector Berlioz, who was only 20 years old at the time of its writing: although he had claimed to have destroyed the work, except for one movement, a copy of the score was discovered in 1992.

The great Bernard Haitink returns to Salzburg with two musical milestones. Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 also gives us the pleasure of hearing the American pianist Murray Perahia, who won the Honorary Award of the German Record Critics in 2011. The second part of the concert will feature Bruckner’s unfinished Symphony No. 9.

The concert programme of the Vienna Philharmonic on August 21 promises to be a very special event, for here, the orchestra presents itself in a chamber version: between Alban Berg’s Kammerkonzert and Mozart’s Gran Partita, which covers a broad spectrum of expressivity, a Salzburg Festival commission will have its world premiere: the composer is Heinz Holliger, who also conducts the entire concert.

English

Vienna Philharmonic 1 Valery Gergiev by Various, From (2012/2012), Conductor Valery Gergiev, Großes Festspielhaus, Salzburg, Austria

Performance credits (Cast & Crew )

Cast

Crew

Ensemble

Programme, About & Synopsis

Photos

Further reading

Performance Dates & Venues

Venues