Francis Poulenc Trio
Sizzles in Summer Blockbuster Tour
- To Russia with Love (and Hilary Hahn)
St. Petersburg, Russia. It had all the makings of a summer thriller.
The Francis Poulenc Trio along with violinist Hilary Hahn toured Russia
as featured guest artists at the St. Petersburg Palaces Festival. The
festival, set in and around St. Petersburg, takes place during the White
Nights – those few weeks in June when the sun sets well after midnight.
In its twelfth year, the festival attracts soloists, conductors and ensembles
from around the world.
The trio, Irina Lande, piano, Vladimir Lande, oboe and Bryan Young,
bassoon, was joined by Grammy-award winning violinist Hilary Hahn. Hahn
has strong musical connections to St. Petersburg – her first teacher
was Baltimorean Clara Berkovich, a native St. Petersberger. And her violin,
a 19th- century French Vuillame, was played for years at the Opera.
Hilary Hahn’s appearance here was met with great public anticipation.
Hahn, who appears regularly in concert halls around the world, had never
made a concert appearance in Russia. There was unprecedented media coverage
for the group’s appearance, with rehearsals broadcast on Russia’s
Today Show, radio news conferences, and interviews on all the major news
networks. The city was plastered with posters and banners advertising
the concert. On the taxi ride into the city, the group was pleasantly
surprised to see the concert touted on a gigantic JumboTron screen overlooking
the famed Nevsky Prospect.
The trio and Hahn arrived in St. Petersburg a few days prior to the
concert in order to rehearse. The repertoire for the concert program
was to include two world premiere works, written specifically for the
trip. The first, a jazzy work by American composer Thomas Benjamin, entitled
Scriabin Sits in Birdland. Written in two movements, the piece dares
to imagine what would happen if the great Russian composer Scriabin were
to wander into a jazz nightclub. The second premiere was an arrangement
of Chau Paris, Astor Piazolla’s charming and nostalgic farewell
to the city.
Also on the program was the Trio Pathetique by Mikhail Glinka, in honor
of that composer’s 200th birthday, a trio by the group’s
namesake, Francis Poulenc, a Russian premiere of Andre Previn’s
trio, and a sparkling Fantasy on Rossini’s Italian in Algiers.
The trio rehearsed in the apartments of Rimsky-Korsakov, composer of
such favorites as Scheherazade and long-time director of the St. Petersburg
Conservatory. The apartment, now open to the public as a museum, required
the trio to wear special protective footwear during rehearsals. These
slippers, which seemed more appropriate to Rimsky’s era, made a
fashionable statement during the trio’s television appearance.
The concert took place in the Hermitage Theater. The theater is a beautiful
hall of marble columns and plush red velvet, commissioned by Catherine
the Great to showcase the great musical talents of her day. Located at
the heart of the famed Winter Palace, it was used for centuries as the
private theater of the Tsars.
For the trio’s concert, the hall was filled with an enthusiastic
audience whose rapturous applause punctuated each pause in the evening’s
proceedings. Also in attendance were television and radio crews from
all of the country’s major news networks.
There was a palpable sense of appreciation for what is here a rare combination
of instruments and repertoire. The Francis Poulenc Trio is one of a few
professional piano and wind trios in the world, and the addition of Hilary
Hahn made for an unforgettable evening.
A few nights later, another special concert took place at the Grand
Philharmonic Hall, when Vladimir Lande conducted the Festival Orchestra.
His program included selections from Die Fledermaus, Carmen, a rarely
performed concerto for Saxophone by Glazunov, and a rousing rendition
of Ravel’s Bolero. The 2000-seat concert hall was filled to capacity
and the concert was made more poignant by the fact that it was a homecoming
of sorts for Lande, who played oboe in the Philharmonic orchestra before
coming to the States.
After the wonderfully well-received concerts, there was time for the
musicians to sample some of St. Petersburg’s nightlife, culture
and cuisine. The group visited several of the city’s newly opened
restaurants, including a Ukrainian grotto with hearty folk-singing and
dancing, the Purga, or the Blizzard, a hot spot that celebrates New Year’s
every night, and the Call of Lenin, an irreverent and entertaining club
that skewers the old symbols of Communism in memorable fashion.
A fascinating feature of St. Petersburg’s nightlife is that it
is hardly night at all. St. Petersburg is the world’s northernmost
European capital, and experiences the annual phenomenon known as the
White Nights. During the month of June, the daylight stretches well into
the nighttime hours, making sleep seem irrelevant. The trio took full
advantage of the extra daylight, sightseeing, shopping and enjoying the
cool summer nights.
The trio is now back in the states and looking forward to an exciting
2004-2005 season!