One week after conducting his National Philharmonic in the concert version of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” and presenting six concerts for second-graders in Montgomery County Schools, Maestro Piotr Gajewski returns Saturday to the Music Center at Strathmore with an all-Russian Chamber Orchestra concert honoring Dmitri Shostakovich’s 100th anniversary.
The program pairs the composer’s somber Symphony No. 14 with Peter Tchaikovsky’s lyrical and romantic “Serenade for Strings.” Completed in 1969, the Shostakovich work deviates from the traditional symphony format. Some critics believe it is more like a song cycle because it has 11 songs about mortality written when he was descending into poor health. The songs are divided into four sections, permitting the work to claim kinship to a symphony with four movements.
This is the orchestra’s second visitation of the work since 1989 when, known as the National Chamber Orchestra, they premiered it in Washington.
“At that time, it was unusual to premiere a work by a famous composer before a Washington audience,” Gajewski says. “Shostakovich based his songs on 11 poems about different aspects of death. Originally, only one of the poems was written in Russian, the others in different languages. He had them translated into Russian for his purposes, but today it is sometimes in vogue to return them to their original languages, although this changes some of the note values.
“I believe that the audience will appreciate the variety of songs sung by our soprano and bass soloists and the way Shostakovich has set each poem to music. He specified only a small string orchestra with percussion instruments, some of them surprising. Among those we use are a vibraphone, tom-toms, a celesta and a whip, which is quite rare. Its sound is made by slapping together two long pieces of wood.”
To add to the authenticity of the work, Gajewski has engaged two Russian soloists familiar with the songs. Already both singers have enchanted American audiences and are becoming well established in international careers.
Soprano Tatiana Pavlovskaya, a member of the Mariinsky Theatre Opera Company in St. Petersburg, Russia, made her U.S. debut in 1998 at both Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Opera. Several seasons ago, she sang the role of Donna Elvira in “Don Giovanni” with the Washington National Opera while DAR Constitution Hall substituted for the Kennedy Center Opera House during its face-lift. This past May, she returned to WNO for Mozart’s “La Clemenza di Tito.” Earlier she joined Plácido Domingo at a Buckingham Palace gala.
Just as critics rave over Pavlovskaya, so are they astounded by bass Nicolai Didenko, whose voice one reviewer pronounced “subterranean.” A graduate of the esteemed Houston Grand Opera Studio, he has generated praise wherever he has appeared since his 2005 debut with the New York Opera in “The Barber of Seville.”
Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14 marks the National Philharmonic’s second presentation of the composer’s works during his celebration year. The September opener featured his brilliant Symphony No. 5, while the January program turns festive with pianist Brian Ganz and trumpeter Chris Gekker as soloists in his Piano Concerto No. 1.
“We want the audience to discover the different sides of Shostakovich,” Gajewski says. “If they heard us play his fifth Symphony, they enjoyed a work that was more traditional, almost romantic in sound.”
National Philharmonic
Piotr Gajewski conducts the National Philharmonic in works by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky with guest soloists Tatiana Pavlovskaya (above) and Nicolai Didenko at 8 p.m. Saturday (free pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m.)
Venue: Music Center at Strathmore, 5301 Tuckerman Lane, North Bethesda, Md.
Tickets: $25 to $79 adults, children 7 to 17 free
More info: 301-581-5100 or www.strathmore.org
