United Kingdom Bach, Poulenc, Saint-Saëns: Taras Baginets (organ), Konstantin Tyulkin, Platon Gazeliridi (pianists), Yekaterinburg Philharmonic Choir, Urals Youth Symphony Orchestra / Aleksey Dorkin (conductor). Streamed live on Digital Concert Hall from Sverdlovsk Philharmonic Hall, 1.3.2022. (GT)
J.S. Bach – Motet ‘Jesu, meine Freude’ BWV 227; Sinfonia from Cantata, BWV 169
Poulenc – Concerto for Organ Timpani and Strings in G minor, FP 93
Saint-Saëns – The Carnival of the Animals
This Urals city for eleven years has been the host for the biggest Bach festival in Russia. This fact is somewhat surprising considering the major musical centres of Moscow and St Petersburg; however this city has a proud heritage in music making through to the modern period. The Philharmonic Hall boasts a German Sauer organ which is one of the biggest in Russia. Here the performers were professional orchestral musicians formed from graduates of the Urals Conservatoire together with the professional chorus of the Philharmonic. Regrettably, the conductor for this concert was to be the German conductor and organist Kay Johannsen, however owing to the recently announced travel restrictions because of the conflict in the Ukraine, he had to return home after preparing this concert. His replacement, Aleksey Dorkin was educated at the Moscow Conservatoire and since his graduation has developed a fine career establishing chamber ensembles which have performed successfully in Russia and Europe. He is the Chief Conductor of the Urals Youth Symphony Orchestra and an esteemed performer of music from the baroque period.
The theme for the 2022 Bach Fest is ‘Bach and French music’; Poulenc has a connection because the Franch composer studied Bach’s organ music when preparing his Organ Concerto, while Camille Saint-Saëns was attracted to Bach when a student and was deeply influenced by his works and was an organist throughout his long career. The Urals Youth Symphony Orchestra uses modern instruments for this repertoire, with the ladies’ choir placed antiphonically. In the opening of the eleven movements, in E minor, it was immediately clear how superbly trained were the voices of the choir, particularly distinguished by the chorale harmonisation of the tenor group. The rhetoric of the stanza ‘Trotz dem alten Drachen’ of the fifth part was expressively performed. In the next movement, taken from Romans ‘Ihr aber seid nicht fleischlich, sondern geistlich’ in G major was distinguished by exquisitely beautiful singing. In the choral fantasia ‘Gute nacht, o Wesen, das die Welt erlesen’ of the sublime ninth movement, it seems the choir have well adapted to the style of Bach singing. This was no more evident in the final eleventh movement ‘Weicht, ihr Trauergeister’ (‘Flee, ye mournful spirits’) where the four-part setting of the opening movement was reprised with the last stanza of the hymn as lyrics. Here the singing was intense and heavenly, and no more so than in the deeply effecting final line which repeated the same theme, ‘Dennoch bleibst du auch im Leide’ (‘You stay with me even in sorrow’). The sopranos in particular were wonderfully lyrical and the hall’s magnificent acoustics allowed the near capacity audience to best appreciate this sacred work. The moods of consolation after great loss combined with the ecstasy were very moving – this on a day when the country was engaged in a tragic conflict with its brother Slavic nation.
In the Poulenc Organ Concerto, the mood was quite different with the gloriously exciting opening on organ by Taras Baginets (the curator of Bach Fest) matched by gentle accompaniment from the soft taps on the timpani, and following the reprise, the expressive strings were eloquent in a noble, dramatic theme. As the secondary idea emerged, we heard a cadenza from the organ supplemented by graceful string playing and another solo from the organ. Again the violins were outstanding in their playing with great feeling and a build-up in tension from the double basses came with sudden excitement in the more dynamically expressive organ chords. Lastly there was a marvellously mesmeric cello passage by Olga Kalashnikova which was like being transported to a new world in a changing passage to the closing cadenza and the sudden climactic chords.
The Bach Sinfonia performed here is the opening movement from a piece dating from the composer’s time in Cothën and which also appears in the Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1053. It is based on ‘Gott soll allein mein Herze haben’ (‘God alone shall have my heart’). Written in the da capo form, as a prolonged instrumental introduction, with the solo part given to the organ, strings and three oboes. The violins were captivating in their expression of a gracious harmony picked up by oboes, bassoon and harpsichord, and then by the second violins, with the oboes announcing a stately noble theme. This was performed immaculately, and it was perhaps only because of the absence of the originally programmed conductor that we did not hear the whole cantata.
It was a notable choice to feature Saint-Saëns’s most popular The Carnival of the Animals following his anniversary year. This provided a demonstration of the orchestra’s virtuosity palpably in the Introduction et marche royale du lion, as the two pianos opened with a bold tremolo against the strings introducing a noble idea before we heard exhilarating glissandos on the keyboards by Konstantin Tyulkin and Platon Gazeliridi. The mood became more evocative in the quirky second movement, Poules et coqs, with a flamboyant clarinet melody in contrast to the Cock-a-Doodle-Doo theme on the pianos. In Hémiones, the third movement, the racy piano playing brought out depictions of the Tibetan donkeys in the composer’s imagination, while in Tortues, the atmosphere was melodic with evocations of the Can-Can from Orpheus in the Underworld deftly characterised on strings articulating beautiful harmonies. The fifth movement, L’Éléphant, was dominated by the two double basses in their Allegro pomposo with lovely tunes taken from Mendelssohn and Berlioz all of which were quite delightfully performed. Then in the brief and swiftly played Kangourous there was magnificently idiosyncratic piano playing. In Aquarium, we heard beautiful glissandos and arpeggios from the pianos against glacially sliding strings, enhanced by the magically colourful glockenspiel playing by Pavel Stratulat and Alexandra Veresova’s flute, all enhanced superbly by the hall’s superb acoustics. In Personnages à longues oreilles the two violins were excellent in their characterisation of music critics depicted as braying donkeys, while in Le Coucuo au fond des bois, the cuckoo invoked on clarinet was aided by supportive keyboard playing. In Volière, we heard gorgeous flute playing from Veresova announcing the main theme, admirably accompanied by the two pianos.
The amazing virtuosity of the two pianists was evident in Pianistes, by their exhibition of playing scales and their trills aided by the strings’ suggestive playing. As each movement quickly passed by, the highlight was the most extraordinary orchestral colours in Fossiles, with the evocation of the Dance macabre from the magical xylophone of Dmitry Sokolov and the violin solo of Olga Golunova, followed by evocations of nursery rhymes, ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ and ‘Au claire de la lune’, while another graceful musical joy arrived in Le cygne, the highlight of which was the stunningly fine playing from Kalashnikova on the cello with all the emotions shown on her face. This was beautifully accompanied by the rippling sixteenths on the pianos. The American carnival of the last movement (Final) – played by the whole orchestra – was packed with more exciting playing from the two pianists, all boosted by reprises of the most vivid themes, especially by the piccolo flute, clarinet, glockenspiel and xylophone all of which brought this opening festival concert to a rousing climax. The Bach Fest continues in Yekaterinburg through until 31 March and several concerts will be streamed live on the Philharmonic’s digital concert hall.
Gregor Tassie