Michael Christie, Music Director
Lara St. John, Violin
CMF Festival Orchestra

Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherezade
Khatchaturian: Violin Concerto in D minor

Canadian violinist Lara St. John began playing the violin at the age of two and gave her first public performance as soloist with an orchestra by age four. In 1976, at five years old, she began making frequent trips to Cleveland, Ohio, where she worked under the instruction of Linda Cerone. In 1979, she spent a year in Paris studying with Gérard Jarry. At age 10, St. John made her European debut with the Gulbenkian Orchestra  in Lisbon, after which she spent three years touring the continent, including Spain, France, and Hungary. At age 13 she entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where she later received her degree. She has also studied at the Moscow Conservatory, the Guildhall School of Music in London, Mannes College of Music, and New England Conservatory. She has performed extensively throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, as well as Russia and Australia.

In 1999, an anonymous donor made a permanent loan to St. John of the 1779 “Salabue” Guadagnini.  This instrument, upon which St. John currently performs, is the most important surviving example of Guadagnini’s work.

Considered Rimsky-Korsakov’s most popular work, Scheherazade is a symphonic suite composed in 1888. Based on One Thousand and One Nights,  sometimes known as The Arabian Nights, this orchestral work combines two features common to Russian music and of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular: dazzling, colorful orchestration and an interest in the East, which figured greatly in the history off Imperial Russia, as well as orientalism in general. The composer deliberately made the titles of the four movements vague, so that they are not associated with specific tales or voyages of Sinbad. However, in the epigraph to the finale, he does make reference to the adventure of Prince Ajib. In a later edition, he did away with titles altogether, suggesting that the listener should hear his work only as an Oriental-themed symphonic music that evokes a sense of the fairy-tale adventure.

Alongside Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khatchaturian is sometimes dubbed as one of the three “titans” of Soviet music. Heavily influenced by Armenian folk music, his Violin Concerto in D minor was completed in 1940 and dedicated to the Russian violinist David Oistrakh, who premièred the concerto in Moscow on September 16, 1940. Oistrakh advised Khachaturian on the composition of the solo part and also wrote his own cadenza that markedly differs from the one originally composed by Khachaturian. The concerto was initially well received and awarded the Stalin Prize for arts in 1941. The work became a staple of the 20th century violin repertoire, and maintains its popularity into the 21st century.

For this all-orchestral program in the Russian Mini-Series, Maestro Christie has chosen two well-known and contrasting works.

In 1936 Sergei Prokofiev was commissioned by Natalya Sats and the Central Children’s Theatre in Moscow to write a new musical symphony for children. The intent was to cultivate “musical tastes in children from the first years of school.” Intrigued by the invitation, Prokofiev completed the composition in just four days.  Peter and the Wolf , with all its friendly characters, has since become a favorite work for audiences of all ages.

Tchaikovsky premiered his final completed symphony, the Pathétique, just 9 days before he died. Known for its passion and emotional expression, rousing brass, lilting melodies and dark harmonies, this symphony’s  second theme from the first movement has inspired three popular songs since the 1940s, including “(This Is) The Story of a Starry Night,” made famous by Glenn Miller.

Russian Masters Mini-Festival – Sponsored by Chris and Barbara Christoffersen

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No.  1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 1
Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30

Now recognized as one of her generation’s great pianists, Olga Kern’s career began  with her award winning gold-medal performance at the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001. Her second catapulting triumph came in New York City on May 4, 2004, with a highly acclaimed New York City recital debut at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. In an unprecedented turn of events, Olga gave a second recital eight days later in Isaac Stern Auditorium at the invitation of Carnegie Hall.  Born as Olga Pushechnikova to a family of musicians with ties to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, she later adopted her mother’s maiden name professionally. Olga began studying piano at the age of five;  winner of the first Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition when she was seventeen, she is a laureate of eleven international competitions and has toured throughout her native Russia, Europe, and the United States, as well as in Japan, South Africa, and South Korea. In addition to performing, Ms. Kern devotes her time to the support and education of developing musicians. In 2012, the artist and her brother, Vladimir Kern co-founded a foundation -  “Aspiration” -  whose objective is to provide financial and artistic assistance to musicians throughout the world.

Sergei  Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov,  and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom that included a pronounced lyricism, expressive breadth, structural ingenuity, and a tonal palette of rich, distinctive orchestral colors. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff’s compositional output. He made a point of using his own skills as a performer to explore fully the expressive possibilities of the instrument. Even in his earliest works he revealed a sure grasp of idiomatic piano writing and a striking gift for melody.

The Piano Concerto No. 1  was actually Rachmaninoff’s second attempt at a piano concerto. In 1889 he had begun but abandoned a concerto in C minor (the same key, incidentally, in which he would later write his Piano Concerto No. 2). The first movement was premiered on 17 March 1892 at the Moscow Conservatory, with the composer as soloist and Vasily Safonov conducting. This may have been the only time the composer played the concerto in its original form. The public was already familiar with the Second and Third Concertos before Rachmaninoff revised the First in 1917. The differences between the 1890-1891 original and the 1917 revision reveal a tremendous amount about the composer’s development in the intervening years. Using an acquired knowledge of harmony, orchestration, piano technique and musical form, he transformed an early, immature composition into a concise, spirited work.

The Piano Concerto No. 3, composed in 1909,  has the reputation of being one of the most technically challenging piano concertos in the standard classical repertoire. Following the form of a standard concerto, the work is in three movements. Rachmaninoff, under pressure, and hoping to make his work more popular, authorized several cuts in the score, to be made at the performer’s discretion. These cuts, particularly in the second and third movements, were commonly taken in performance and recordings during the initial decades following the Concerto’s publication. More recently, it has become commonplace to perform the concerto without cuts. A typical performance of the complete concerto lasts about forty minutes.

The concerto is respected, even feared, by many pianists. Josef Hoffman, the pianist to whom the work is dedicated, never publicly performed it, saying that it “wasn’t for” him. And Gary Graffman lamented he had not learned this concerto as a student, when he was “still too young to know fear.”

The concerto was first performed on November 28, 1909 by Rachmaninoff himself with the now-defunct New Your Symphony Society with Walter Damrosch conducting. It received a second performance under Gustav Mahler several weeks later, an “experience Rachmaninoff treasured.” Rachmaninoff called the Third the favorite of his own piano concertos, stating that “I much prefer the Third, because my Second is so uncomfortable to play.” Nevertheless, it was not until the 1930s and largely thanks to the advocacy of Vladimir Horowitz that the Third concerto became popular.

Russian Masters Mini-Festival – Sponsored by Chris and Barbara Christoffersen

Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No.  2 in C minor, Op. 18
Rachmaninoff:  Piano Concerto No. 4 in G minor, Op. 40
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Now recognized as one of her generation’s great pianists, Olga Kern’s career began  with her award winning gold-medal performance at the Eleventh Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2001. Her second catapulting triumph came in New York City on May 4, 2004, with a highly acclaimed New York City recital debut at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall. In an unprecedented turn of events, Olga gave a second recital eight days later in Isaac Stern Auditorium at the invitation of Carnegie Hall.  Born as Olga Pushechnikova to a family of musicians with ties to Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff, Olga began studying piano at the age of five; she later adopted her mother’s maiden name professionally.  Winner of the first Rachmaninoff International Piano Competition when she was seventeen, she is a laureate of eleven international competitions and has toured throughout her native Russia, Europe, and the United States, as well as in Japan, South Africa, and South Korea. In addition to performing, Ms. Kern devotes her time to the support and education of developing musicians. In 2012, the artist and her brother, Vladimir Kern co-founded a foundation -  “Aspiration” -  whose objective is to provide financial and artistic assistance to musicians throughout the world.

Sergei  Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music. Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov,  and other Russian composers gave way to a thoroughly personal idiom that included a pronounced lyricism, expressive breadth, structural ingenuity, and a tonal palette of rich, distinctive orchestral colors. The piano is featured prominently in Rachmaninoff’s compositional output. He made a point of using his own skills as a performer to explore fully the expressive possibilities of the instrument. Even in his earliest works he revealed a sure grasp of idiomatic piano writing and a striking gift for melody.

The Piano Concerto No. 2 was composed between the autumn of 1900 and April 1901.The second and third movements were first performed with the composer as soloist on December 2, 1900. The complete work was premiered, again with the composer as soloist, on November 9, 1901 with his cousin Alexander Siloti conducting. This piece is one of Rachmaninoff’s most enduringly popular pieces, and established his fame as a concerto composer. Haunted by personal and professional problems, Rachmaninoff had fallen into a depression that lasted for several years. His Piano Concerto No. 2  confirmed his recovery from clinical depression and writer’s block. The concerto was dedicated to Nikolai Dahl,  a physician who had done much to restore Rachmaninoff’s self-confidence.

Several popular tunes have been composed based on Rachmaninoff’s melodies. The Adagio sostenuto theme appears in Eric Carmen’s 1975 ballad “All By Myself.”  Carmen first composed the song’s interlude, then took the bridge from Rachmaninoff and the chorus from his own “Let’s Pretend.”  The opening chords of Adagio sostenuto also appear in the orchestrated version of Aria di Mezzo Carattere from Final Fantasy VI. The second theme of the Allegro scherzando provides the basis for Frank Sinatra’s 1945 “Full Moon and Empty Arms.”

The Piano Concerto No. 4  is a major work, which Rachmaninoff completed in 1926. The work exists in three versions. Following its unsuccessful premiere (1st version), the composer made cuts and other amendments before publishing it in 1928 (2nd version). With continued lack of success, he withdrew the work, eventually revising and republishing it in 1941 (3rd version, most generally performed today). The original manuscript version was released in 2000 by the Rachmaninoff Estate to be published and recorded. The work is dedicated to Nikolai Medtner, who in turn dedicated his Second Piano Concerto to Rachmaninoff the following year.

Compared to its predecessors, the Fourth Concerto contains sharper thematic profiles along with a refinement of textures in keyboard and orchestra. These qualities do not lead to greater simplicity but to a different sort of complexity. It was also a continuation of Rachmaninoff’s long-range creative growth: the Third Concerto and the recomposed First Concerto were less heavily orchestrated than the Second Concerto. In keeping with its general character, the Fourth Concerto is lighter still. It is the least known of all Rachmaninoff’s piano concertos, but it is frequently performed in Russia. There may be several reasons for this. The structure was criticized for being amorphous and difficult to grasp on a single hearing. Only the second movement (Largo) contains a prominent melody, while the external movements seem to be composed mainly of virtuosic piano runs and cadenzas. Like most of Rachmaninoff’s late works, the concerto has a daring chromaticism and a distinctive jazzy quality.

The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is written for solo piano and symphony orchestra, closely resembling a piano concerto. The work was written at Rachmaninoff’s home in Switzerland, Villa Senar,  according to the score, from July 3 to August 18, 1934. Rachmaninoff himself, a noted interpreter of his own works, played the solo piano part at the piece’s premiere at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 7, 1934 with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Leopold Stokowski.  Rachmaninoff, Stokowski, and the Philadelphia Orchestra made the first recording, on December 24, 1934. The piece is a set of 24 variations on the twenty-fourth and last of Niccolo Paganini’s Caprices for solo violin, which has inspired works by several composers. The whole composition takes approximately 25 minutes to perform. All variations are in A minor, except the middle variations – 12 through 18. Although Rachmaninoff’s work is performed in one stretch without breaks, it can be divided into three sections, corresponding to the three movements of a concerto: up to variation 10 corresponds to the first movement, variations 11 to 18 are the equivalent of a slow movement, and the remaining variations make a finale.