From Shostakovich to TRASH

The month of May is important to Russians. And I do not mean because of the change of presidents, but because of Victory Day celebrated on the 9th.

Irrespective of the declarations by the newly liberated and enlightened “historians” who try to downgrade the role of the Russian people in the Second World War – I shall not contradict them, they will burn in hell in due time – Victory Day remains the only civic holiday by which every Russian (as a nation I mean) family feels concerned. I exclude the few neo-Nazis – they will join the previous group.

I happened to be in Moscow during the long weekend. The traditional parade on the Red Square demonstrated the country’s military might – as it was supposed to. But what struck me the most is how few veterans I crossed in the streets and how terribly fragile this generation is becoming.

But back to Geneva; it is symbolic, that this month the Swiss music scene is marked by two major works of Russian repertoire, “Boris Godunov” in Zurich opera and Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony (in Geneva’s Victoria Hall tomorrow).

When I hear Shostakovich’s Seventh (otherwise known as The Leningrad Symphony) my impulse is to get on my feet and salute. (Strangely enough I do not have the same reflex towards my national anthem. My husband says that years of propaganda registered with me but not in the right files.)

The destiny of this monumental work is in many ways contradictory. Its first part was finalized by Dmitri Shostakovich in besieged Leningrad on September 3, 1941. (At the time, Shostakovich combined two functions, those of a composer and of a fireman, taking shifts on the roof of the Leningrad Conservatory). The final part was completed in February 1942 in Kuibyshev (now Samara) where Shostakovich was evacuated together with the greater part of the Bolshoi’s company, whose orchestra gave the premiere performance on March 5^th (Stalin’s birthday!)

The Western world got to admire it on July 1942, performed by the then NBS Symphonic Orchestra (now the NY Philharmonic) conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The ratings were huge: several million people listened to the live broadcast. The audience included Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Rakhmaninov and Bartok, who were all hugely impressed.

Finally, on 9 August 1942 the Symphony was performed in Leningrad by the orchestra composed of the 15 (out of 150) surviving but exhausted members of the Leningrad Philharmonic and other musicians assembled for the occasion. The concert took place in the Leningrad Philarmony, one of the most beautiful concert halls of the world, under the baton of Carl Eliasberg.

This historic moment is vividly shown in Alexandre Buravsky’s film “Leningrad”, which last year received the Russian national film award.

To read the full story, you should urgently brush up your Russian and read the full article at http://www.nashagazeta.ch/article/1335. In the meantime, try to get a ticket to the performance tomorrow – Yury Temirkanov, who will conduct the Saint-Petersburg Symphonic orchestra, is himself a living legend.

On a totally different scale, another interesting event is taking place in Geneva, at the Flux Laboratory (10 rue Jacques-Dalphin in Carouge): TRASH. It presents works by two French photographers, Bruno Mouron and Pascal Rostain, specialized in covering “celebrities”. This time they decided to have a look at the backyards, and more specifically their garbage cans.

Next to the revelatory trash of Madonna and Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and an anonymous Swiss banker, one can see two panels, representing Rich Russia and Poor Russia.

Well, what can I say… tough for the foreigners to distinguish between the two, especially if the search for the poor is in the heart of Moscow…

But still, it is quite funny, and worth a stop. For more information, read the following article: http://www.nashagazeta.ch/article/1338

Rich or Poor Trash?