Salute to Tchaikovsky

MD Series 2

Salute to Tchaikovsky


2017-12-22 Fri 19:30National Concert Hall 400 700 1000 1200 1500Buy
SHAO-CHIA LÜ, conductor
ASMIK GRIGORIAN, soprano

IGOR STRAVINSKY: ‘Divertimento’ from Le baiser de la fée (The Fairy’s Kiss)
P. I. TCHAIKOVSKY: Tatiana Letter scene from Eugene Onegin
P. I. TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 6, Op. 74, B minor, Pathetique

“All my thoughts are now taken up with this composition (symphony No. 6), and it's very difficult for me to break away from this work. It seems to me that this is the best work I have ever produced.”
— Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

This “Salute to Tchaikovsky” program opens with a work by Stravinsky, and most appropriately so. Into his ballet score The Fairy’s Kiss (to a scenario based on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Ice Maiden), Stravinsky incorporated thematic material from over a dozen of Tchaikovsky’s piano and vocal pieces, woven together with his deft stylistic touch. From Tchaikovsky’s operatic side we hear the Letter Scene from Eugene Onegin. This is the very heart and soul of the opera, and provides a soprano with one of her most deeply-felt and cherished moments of operatic impersonation. From Tchaikovsky’s purely orchestral side Maestro Lü conducts the composer’s final symphony, the Pathétique, music saturated with searing emotional intensity, passionate lyricism and unforgettable melodies.