Legendary Gennadi Rozhdestvensky at Bilkent
BY KATE SAMPSELL-WILLMANN
Words fail. Living a life of the mind, one has a nearly unlimited repertoire for expressing ideas. My tools happen to be photographic art and the English language. I fear that for this task both are quite limited. If one had the finely-tuned sharpness of Kazimir Malevich or the passionate and wounded psychological depth of Otto Dix - or even the penetrating intellect of William Butler Yeats - perhaps a review of last weekend's BSO concert would appear to the reader in some approximate expression worthy of the word sublime. Yes, it was that good.
The theme of the concert seems to have been life celebrated in agonized defiance of oppression. With Hindemith as the opening composition, we might call the program a display of glorious "entartete Kunst." Hindemith is a personal favorite of legendary conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and gentle lightning emanated from the podium as he led. The great maestro delighted the audience with his ability to evoke latent humor in the often very serious Hindemith and even treated the audience to a wee syncopated sashay (worry not maestro, only those of us who knew to look saw it) in the second movement.
Rozhdestvensky is particularly well known for his programming of modernist masterpieces, and this was the enormous treat that awaited the lucky few who attended the performances. Felix Mendelssohn's Concerto for Violin, Piano, and Strings, written when the composer was only eleven (so, what have you created lately?), was the perfect showcase for the enormous talent of soloists Sasha Rozhdestvensky (violin) and Viktoria Postnikova (piano). I believe I actually felt my heart break during the Adagio duet.
We must again praise the maestro for bringing his family to Bilkent to perform; Sasha Bey and Viktoria Hanım are son and mother. Since my skills are not as such to paint you a word picture of the performance, one must examine the Concerto as of particular importance to the historian. Mendelssohn's childhood composition was lost to the world until virtuoso violinist Yehudi Mehunin discovered the piece in the 1950s. Without it, the world was a much sadder place. Thanks to the flawless performance, the soloists delighted the audience on Saturday with a brief encore, a traditional dance Concerto Grosso No. 6 composed by Alfred Schnittke. Protocol aside, this listener wished to jump to her feet with a shout of Bravissimo!
Following intermission, the BSO, shepherded by the great Rozhdestvensky, poured their heart and soul into Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5. The melodic paradigm of this familiar yet ever inspirational gem defies my statement that this week's performance was not about the melody (a jazz reference); the true genius of the Fifth lies in its repeated melodic structure. Tchaikovsky's great allure is his improbable per aspera ad astra (tragic to triumphant) agility. Again, within the programmatic structure, essentially placing before the audience music the Nazis hated, the Fifth has its place in history as the unconquerable soul of the Russian people. Performed during the 872-day siege of Leningrad, even falling German bombs failed to extinguish its pathos and defiance. Having heard it played with renewed passion last weekend, one reflects that perhaps Tchaikovsky himself kept the great city from falling. It is no exaggeration to say music saved us all. Truly, it has that power.
Moving majestically from E minor to E major, the Fifth precipitously yet flawlessly shifts in a single moment from an emotional celebration of the open Russian steppes to a heartbreakingly sweet statement of the fragility of love and life and back again. It is difficult to remember that this was not written during either of the two great calamities of the twentieth century. And although it is vastly incorrect to ascribe clairvoyance (or clairaudience) to artists, one must wonder, listing to the Fifth (and the Sixth; please BSO, give us "The Pathétique") whether some great souls are not merely reflexive but are indeed privy to the crushing chaos yet to come. One thing is for certain; in these troubled times, we all need more Tchaikovsky.