Baton 4, March 13, 2010

Program Notes of March 13, 2010

Dmitri Kabalevsky - Colas Breugnon: Overture

Alexander Glazunov - Violin Concerto, op. 82 in A minor

Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky - Symphony #2, op. 17 in C minor

Russian composers of the last couple centuries have found themselves dealing not only with the tensions of their music, but also the social and political implications of their work. Throughout this time Russians struggled to reconcile their fascination for the musical tradition of the west with their allegiance to the music of their Russian heritage. When Tchaikovsky wrote his Second Symphony, he owed much to his German and Austrian predecessors, but at the same time he built his symphony on the Ukrainian folksongs of his homeland. Alexander Glazunov's career began with a fascination for the western tradition, and his violin concerto drew from the romantic style he discovered in his youth. Later in life he found himself resisting the formalism of the new century. For Dmitri Kabalevsky, rejecting the formalist style of the new age became a political imperative; for he wrote his music under the watchful eye of Soviet bureaucrats, who ruthlessly crushed the careers of composers who diverted from their criteria of political correctness. Despite the social pressures on their work, Russian composers succeeded in transcending parochial considerations, and they created a body of work that enriched the western tradition by incorporating sounds on its eastern periphery.