"I do not know what fatigue is." Ivan Sollertinsky Memorial Festival in Vitebsk

VITEBSK. In the homeland of Ivan Sollertinsky opened XXIX International Music Festival named after him.

Mystics could call Vitebsk a sacred city, a place of power that has an incredible effect on everyone who was born here, or at least lived and worked at some time. The list of famous people who came into contact with Vitebsk is amazing: Chagall, Malevich, Lissitzky, Repin, Pen, Dobuzhinsky, Falk, Pan, Bykov, Marshak, dozens of other names. A native of this city was Ivan Sollertinsky, an outstanding educator, musicologist, polyglot, and a specialist in Western European culture. A fan and propagandist of the work of Mahler and Schoenberg, a friend of Shostakovich. He was a member of the philosopher and culturologist Mikhail Bakhtin. A man with a phenomenal memory, encyclopedic knowledge, author of articles and monographs, professor, brilliant lecturer.

Sollertinsky left his hometown as a young man. Most of his short life was spent in St. Petersburg (Leningrad). Recent months have been closely associated with Novosibirsk. At the beginning of the war, dozens of institutions and enterprises, groups of several theaters and the Leningrad Philharmonic Society with a symphony orchestra under the direction of Mravinsky were evacuated here. Only about 130 thousand people.

“I don’t know what fatigue is,” Sollertinsky said. A month later, in the non-musical city that Novosibirsk appeared in September 1941, Ivan Ivanovich opened the philharmonic season. In concerts, the best works of world classics, the Fifth, Seventh and Eighth Symphonies of Shostakovich, were sounded. Lectures were given, tours were organized in the cities of Siberia, new performances were prepared in the evacuated Pushkin Theater, and conditions were created for regular concert activities. Sollertinsky played a unique role in the development of Novosibirsk as one of the largest cultural centers of our country.

In February 1944, a few months before the alleged move to Moscow in connection with his transfer to work at the Moscow Conservatory, Ivan Ivanovich died suddenly. A sick heart could not stand the hard life, harsh climate, wear and tear.

The initiative of Vladimir Baidov, the head of the ensemble of soloists Classic Avant-Garde, and the team of like-minded people who wanted to bring a fresh stream to the cultural life of his native city and remind him of an outstanding countryman, turned out to be fateful. So in 1989 the history of the Ivan Ivanovich Sollertinsky festival began. One of the most active assistants was his son, Dmitry Ivanovich.

The music palette of the festival includes works by Belarusian, Russian, and foreign composers. One of the hallmarks of the forum is its multi-genre nature, the holding of many events within its framework: exhibitions, scientific readings, concerts. In 2017, in the year of the 115th anniversary of the birth of Sollertinsky, it is held for the 29th time. On December 7, the opening of the festival took place, which will last until December 17. The program includes performances by famous soloists and groups from Belarus, Russia, Germany, scientific readings, a program dedicated to the 130th anniversary of Marc Chagall.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru