CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Olga Borodina
Dmitri Yefimov

Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Thursday, February 25th, 2010 at 8:00 PM

Olga Borodina, Mezzo-Soprano
Dmitri Yefimov, Piano

RIMSKY-KORSAKOV "Of What I Dream in the Quiet Night," Op. 40, No. 3
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV "Not the Wind, Blowing from the Heights," Op. 43, No. 2
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV "The Clouds Begin to Scatter," Op. 42, No. 3
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV "The Lark Sings Louder," Op. 43, No. 1
CUI "Desire," Op. 57. No. 25
CUI "The Fountain Statue at Tsarskoye Selo," Op. 57, No. 17
CUI "I Touched the Bloom Lightly," Op. 49, No. 1
MUSSORGSKY "Night"
BORODIN "The Sea Princess"
BALAKIREV "The Bright Moon"
BALAKIREV "Spanish Song" from Three Forgotten Songs, No. 3
BALAKIREV "I Loved Him"
SHOSTAKOVICH Spanish Songs, Op. 100
SVIRIDOV "The Crimson Forest Sheds its Attire"
SVIRIDOV "A Winter's Road"
SVIRIDOV "Drawing Near To Izhory"
SVIRIDOV "'Russia Cast Adrift"

Encores:
FALLA "El paño moruno"
FALLA "Nana"
SAINT-SAËNS "Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix" from Samson et Dalila

Program is approximately 1 hour, 40 minutes, including one intermission

Sponsored by Morgan Stanley

Program Notes:

NIKOLAI RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (1844–1908)
"Of What I Dream in the Quiet Night," Op. 40, No. 3
"Not the Wind, Blowing from the Heights," Op. 43, No. 2
"The Clouds Begin to Scatter," Op. 42, No. 3
"The Lark Sings Louder," Op. 43, No. 1

The future creator of Sheherazade, Spanish Capriccio, and 15 great operas initially followed the tradition of his aristocratic military family and became a naval officer. For a while, he combined his military service with developing his skills as a pianist, composer, and conductor (under Balakirev's tutelage). He left the military in 1873 and eventually became an influential educator (teaching Stravinsky, Lyadov, and Glazunov) and the undisputable leader of Russian music.

A young Rimsky-Korsakov, like his friends in the Mighty Five, considered opera the most important genre for establishing a national music. He turned seriously to romance only in the 1890s, partly because of his connection with talented young singers of Mamontov's Private Opera, which staged his works. By the end of his productive life, Rimsky-Korsakov had composed 70 romances.

All four works in this program were written in 1897 and are among the composer's most emotionally open and melodically attractive. At this point in his life, the usually restrained composer—known for his intellect, discipline, craftsmanship, and aversion to any display of emotions—had become more Tchaikovsky-like in his music. The warm and poetic "Of What I Dream in the Quiet Night"; the fleeting and tender "Not the Wind, Blowing from the Heights"; and the most famous one (based on verses by Alexander Pushkin), "The Clouds Begin to Scatter," with its slightly oriental colorings, are meditations on love and longing on a quiet night. Through long melodic lines and carefully chosen harmonies, tension builds towards the climactic outburst and calms by the end, creating a balanced, though seemingly spontaneous arc. "The Lark Sings Louder" is an ecstatic hymn to spring and new life, with words of Alexey K. Tolstoy, whose poetry was one of the favorite sources for Russian romances of the time.



César Cui (1835–1918)
"Desire," Op. 57, No. 25
"The Fountain Statue at Tsarskoye Selo," Op. 57, No. 17
"I Touched the Bloom Lightly," Op. 49, No. 1

Born in Vilnius to a Lithuanian mother and a French father, Cui played piano from childhood and as a teenager studied theory, composition, and counterpoint with Polish composer Monushko. He had chosen (and never gave up), however, a career as a military engineer and became an authority on fortification, a general, and a professor, whose textbooks were studied in Russian military schools. At the same time, he managed to write around 700 articles as a major music critic and also composed 14 operas (four of them for children), a few instrumental works, and more than 400 romances.

Cui's romances are refined miniatures, more lyrical than dramatic, with few but precise details that shed light on emotional nuances of the song's narrative. The piano texture is simple and transparent, the music guided by the text's rhythm and melody. The program includes the dark monologue "Desire," based on one of the most tragic of Pushkin's poems; the tranquil miniature "The Fountain Statue at Tsarskoye Selo," also with Pushkin's verses; and a song of a lost love, "I Touched the Bloom Lightly," on verses by the famous playwright, theater organizer, and director Nemirovich-Danchenko. All three were written in the 1890s, when Russian art experienced renewed interest in the pure beauty of life and the mysteries of soul and spirit.



MODEST MUSSORGSKY (1839–1881)
"Night"

The work of Pushkin, the father of Russian literature and modern language, had been the greatest literary source for Russian music. His poetry, with its fleeting rhythms, unique musicality, and richness of visual and emotional imagery, inspired romances of various styles. In Mussorgsky's "Night," the composer's only romance on Pushkin's verses, we see a strangely irreverent attitude towards the text.

Mussorgsky grew up at his family's estate in the country and came to St. Petersburg to pursue a military career. Soon after meeting Borodin, Cui, and Balakirev, he left the military, but had to make a living with the hateful job of a civil servant.

His music soon began to reflect his unique capacity for radical innovation. Almost obsessed with reflecting in music the nuances of speech, he famously wrote: "I want the sound to directly express the word. I want the truth." This aim led to using unusual means, as "Night" musically demonstrates.

It was written around the time when Mussorgsky worked on his unfinished opera Salammbô—one of the opera projects that he partially tackled before composing his first masterpiece, Boris Godunov, based on Pushkin's drama. Four years later, in 1868, he embarked on a second version of "Night." In attempt to create a theatrical scene, Mussorgsky changed Pushkin's verses, repeating some words, eliminating others, and transforming rhymed stanzas into sometimes dreamy, sometimes feverish utterances.



ALEXANDER BORODIN (1833–1887)
"The Sea Princess"

Despite Borodin's enormous musical gift, he devoted his life to chemical studies and social causes, becoming one of the greatest names in 19th-century European science. Though the number of his musical compositions is small, it is hard to find any weakness or mediocrity in his musical output, which includes the opera Prince Igor (completed by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov after Borodin's death), two symphonies, two quartets, and 17 very diverse and perfectly executed romances. A talented poet, he himself wrote verses for eight of them, including "The Sea Princess."

This bewitching call of the daughter of the sea, who awaits a young voyager, was probably inspired by German Lieder. (Borodin, who studied in Heidelberg and later frequently visited Germany, particularly loved Schumann.) But the lullaby-like music of "The Sea Princess," with its static, though colorful harmonies and slow languishing melody, is pure Borodin.



MILY BALAKIREV (1837–1910)
"The Bright Moon"
"Spanish Song" from Three Forgotten Songs, No. 3
"I Loved Him"

Borodin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Cui all met Balakirev under different circumstances between 1856 and 1862. Though younger then Cui and Borodin, and virtually self-taught, he became a main force behind their artistic development and was one of the most influential figures in the history of Russian music. Familiar now to the West mostly by way of his piano fantasy Islamey, he was a brilliant conductor, pianist, and concert organizer, as well as the author of symphonic programmatic works, two symphonies, various choral compositions, transcriptions, incidental music, folk songs arrangements, and approximately 50 romances.

His early romances, like "Spanish Song," written when he was still a student mathematician at the University of Kazan, or "The Bright Moon," are charming little stories of love in the style and spirit of Russian domestic romances. An influence of Glinka and Dargomyzhsky, the "fathers" of the classical Russian romance, is evident. "I Loved Him," part of a group written around 1895 and 1896 after years of mental and physical problems and his almost complete withdrawal from music, sounds like a gypsy zhestoky ("cruel") romance, full of passion and theatricality.



DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975)
Spanish Songs, Op. 100

Why did Shostakovich—known for his giant symphonic masterpieces or the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District—write these short, mostly light-hearted love songs that are simple in form and texture and based on a folk poems and tunes? Was it by request from his friend, the great mezzo-soprano Zara Dolukhanova, who brought his attention to an anthology of Spanish songs? Was it a sign of his state of mind at the time of political thaw and the beginning of his second marriage (the cycle's story line can be read as a declaration of love, culminating in the "Dream"—the image of a lonely sailor fighting the waves and saved by love)? It could also be that with this gracious tribute to a tradition of Russian music about Spain, Shostakovich—who experienced the party's attacks on formalism—continued to respond to official demands of "being accessible to the masses" and "to write as the classics did."

In any case, the cycle reminds us that Shostakovich was a great melodist and master-composer, perfectly capable of writing highly accessible music, marked at the same time with great taste, depth, and sensitivity. Spanish flavor, albeit probably seen through the lens of his Russian predecessors, is miraculously combined with Shostakovich's distinct style: tender, but cool and never sentimental when in comes to expressions of love.



GEORGY SVIRIDOV (1915–1998)
"The Crimson Forest Sheds its Attire"
"A Winter's Road"
"Drawing Near to Izhory"
"Russia Cast Adrift"

A peasant's son from the region of Kursk, Sviridov played balalaika in the local orchestra and took piano lessons before coming to Leningrad (now known as St. Petersburg) in 1932 to become a professional musician. He entered the Leningrad College of Music, where he discovered that he could learn to be a composer. Three years later, before pursuing advanced studies at the Leningrad Conservatory, he wrote six romances on Pushkin's poems. The group included "The Crimson Forest Sheds its Attire" and "A Winter's Road"—two monologues of loneliness and hope against the background of gloomy Russian landscapes—and the cheerful, humorous "Drawing Near to Izhory." The Pushkin songs brought Sviridov his first success and remain among his most popular works.

An expert in Russian poetry and language, Sviridov went on to write numerous vocal cycles, cantatas, and oratorios on verses by some of the greatest Russian poets, from Nekrasov to Block and Pasternak. "Russia Cast Adrift" is a song from a cycle of the same title based on verses of Sergei Yesenin, the "bard of Russian village" and one of Sviridov's favorite poets. In this poem, written around the time of the Bolshevik revolution, Yesenin compares Russia to a crying swan flying ahead of an army of souls into the "garden of heaven." In his characteristically laconic and precise style, Sviridov magnifies it into an eternal symbol of Russia, a poignant mixture of sadness and light.

A "quiet innovator," Sviridov was able to give voice to his times without revolutionary break from tradition, creating at the same time a highly recognizable style. This style is rooted in Russian folk and liturgical music; it is influenced by Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky, inspired by the sound of Russian bells, and relied on a cantilena-like melody of long phrases and wide breadth. It was highly attuned not only to the music and emotion of the poetry, but to the nuances and meanings of the words.

Sviridov's songs were written in the ideologically oppressive atmosphere of the Soviet era. The song had become to him not just a genre of a very personal, lyrical expression, but a declaration of his spiritual independence and a reminder of the Russian past, which was distorted by official historians during the Soviet years. He avoided, though, structurally and linguistically complex poems. Similarly, his musical style was laconic, almost minimalist and even austere at times. With transparent, simple musical textures; mostly slow tempos; and spare, carefully chosen harmonies, its purpose is obvious—words, their meaning, and the moods behind them.

—Maya Pritsker

© 2010 The Carnegie Hall Corporation

More Information:

One of opera's top stars, Olga Borodina gives a special recital of familiar treasures and wonderful discoveries from the Russian song literature. She offers 19th-century delicacies by Rimsky-Korsakov and others, dark Spanish songs by Shostakovich, and Soviet-era music by Georgy Sviridov, drenched in Russian nostalgia.

Magdalena Kožená has, with great regret, cancelled her concert on February 25 in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage. All tickets to the originally announced February 25 concert will be honored. Ticketholders with questions should contact CarnegieCharge at 212-247-7800.

Olga Borodina, Mezzo-Soprano
Olga Borodina

Olga Borodina made her highly acclaimed European debut in 1992 at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, sharing the stage with Plácido Domingo in Saint-Saëns's Samson et Dalila. This launched her international career and she has since performed regularly at the world's major opera houses.

Ms. Borodina made her Metropolitan Opera debut in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in 1997, and returned for the opening night of the Met's 1998–1999 season in Samson et Dalila. Subsequent engagements have included such major roles as Amneris in Aida, Carmen, Isabella in L'italiana in Algeri, Laura Adorno in La Gioconda, Marguerite in La damnation de Faust, and Princess Eboli in Don Carlos, as well as a recent telecast of Adriana Lecouvreur with Domingo. She is also a frequent guest at the San Francisco Opera and Washington National Opera.

Highlights of the 2008–2009 concert season included performances with Riccardo Muti and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Muti and the Orchestre National de France in Verdi's Requiem, and Tony Pappano at Covent Garden and in Birmingham (UK). Later this year, Ms. Borodina performs in Paris, Prague, Finland, and with Muti at the Salzburg Festival.

In recital, Ms. Borodina has appeared at the Concertgebouw and all of the major venues in London, Milan, Vienna, San Francisco, Rome, Paris, Barcelona, and Madrid, among others. She made her Carnegie Hall recital debut in 2001 with James Levine on the piano, and returned in 2004 and 2006, the latter for a duet recital with her husband, bass Ildar Abdrazakov. She also returned to Teatro alla Scala, Madrid, and Lisbon for recitals last season.

Awarded the People's Artist of Russia title in 2002, Ms. Borodina is a 2004 recipient of the State Prize of the Russian Federation.

Dmitri Yefimov, Piano
Dmitri Yefimov

Born in Leningrad in 1965, Dmitri Yefimov began his musical studies at age five. He graduated from the N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov Saint Petersburg State Conservatory in 1990, studying with Pavel Egorov, and completed post-graduate work in 1992.

Mr. Yefimov earned the Best Accompanist award at the all-union vocal competition in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 1992. Later that year, he received a diploma at the Franz Liszt International Competition in Parma, Italy.

As a soloist and an accompanist, Mr. Yefimov has performed in Russia, Germany, France, the UK, and the US. He is a regular accompanist of Olga Borodina, with whom he has performed worldwide.

Mr. Yefimov has taught piano at the Saint Petersburg State Conservatory since 1992. He has released two recordings of Beethoven piano sonatas for the Audiophile Classics series.