XL Festival "December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter"

XL Festival "December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter"
Reverse perspective: 2020–1981.

Pushkin Museum im. A.S. Pushkin presented the program of the XL Festival “December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter. Reverse perspective: 2020-1981 ”and announced the start date of ticket sales for concerts - from October 23, they will be available online. This year the festival, created by the famous pianist together with Irina Aleksandrovna Antonova, then director of the Pushkin Museum, celebrates its 40th anniversary. Its poster refers to the concerts of the December Evenings of the 1980s and 1990s, when the maestro himself took part in them. Full information, detailed music programs, interviews and memoirs of performers and participants of the festival from different years are presented on a separate website - decemberfest. pushkinmuseum. art. Online ticket sales are also available there.

The jubilee fortieth festival “December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter. Reverse Perspective: 2020–1981 ”was conceived as the culmination of the musical season of the Pushkin Museum. AS Pushkin, dedicated to the 105th anniversary of the birth of the maestro. The concert program has a complete symmetrical form. The festival is opened and closed by the Moscow Soloists chamber ensemble directed by Yuri Bashmet. Russian stars perform together with the legendary collective: Evgeny Mironov, Alexander Rudin, Boris Berezovsky, Friedrich Lips. Two other concerts were given to pianists - Mikhail Pletnev and Eliso Virsaladze, whose names are inextricably linked with the history of "December Evenings" and are well known to fans of piano music all over the world.

The concept of the festival “Reverse Perspective: 2020–1981” is based not only on the idea of memories of specific “December Evenings” of the 1980–1990s, but also a chain of associations associated with the personality of Richter himself. The piano concerto by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Boris Berezovsky), the poignant, romantic pieces by Robert Schumann (Eliso Virsaladze) or the musical landscapes of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Mikhail Pletnev) alternate with programs where classics and modernity form a musical diptych, symbolizing the great spirit of the greatest a pianist and interpreter of the classical heritage, at the same time a man and artist of the 20th century. The first program “An Artist Reads the Bible” is based on this principle, in which the works of Joseph Haydn and Sofia Gubaidulina are combined, as well as the final concert “Classics and Avant-garde”,presenting to the public an original work by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an ironic homage to the Viennese classics Alfred Schnittke and, finally, the world premiere of Alexander Vustin’s latest work “Anniversaries” (2020), dedicated to the fortieth festival “December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter”.

Irina Antonova, President of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts AS Pushkin: “The Music Festival gave the museum a new dimension, enriched the perception with depth of associations, reflections on the nature of art. He brought us back to our original understanding of our House as a museum of fine arts. "

Marina Devovna Loshak, Director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts A.S. Pushkin: “” December evenings ”is a part of our chromosome set, a great and imperishable myth associated with the Pushkin Museum. And 40 years is not an ordinary date for us. This year we want to meditate on this topic in a special, very conscious and deep way. We are fully prepared, no matter what, to hold the December Evenings of 2020 as one of the most important anniversary festivals in the history of the Pushkin Museum. "

Yuri Abramovich Bashmet, artistic director of the festival “December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter. Reverse perspective: 2020–1981 ":" These are not just concerts in museum halls. These are specially prepared thematic programs, based on the search for the harmony of music and painting… For Richter, the atmosphere was very important when people - all - are in a joint "flight", when creativity and love for music reign. "

Traditionally, the festival’s music programs complement the theme of the main exhibition, which opens in December. Without duplicating the "plot", they significantly enrich its content. Exhibition “Svyatoslav Richter. I see music "(December 1, 2020 - January 30, 2021) will reveal to the audience an amazing personality, unexpected and contradictory inner world of a unique artist. Richter belonged to the category of musicians who are able to perceive music visually. There was always a reproduction of a painting next to his grand piano, not directly related to the work being performed at the moment, but evoking certain associations. This peculiarity of music perception prompted the idea of the exhibition. The exhibition will feature works that in one way or another correlate with the personality and work of Richter. They will be accompanied by quotes from Svyatoslav Teofilovich,The maestro’s "direct speech" will be supplemented by fragments of musical works from the pianist’s repertoire and mentioned by him in his memoirs.

FESTIVAL PROGRAM

December 1 - "An artist reads the Bible"
(December evenings 1994)
Chamber ensemble "Moscow Soloists"
Artistic director and chief conductor Yuri Bashmet
Soloists - Evgeny Mironov (reader), Alexander Rudin (cello), Friedrich Lips (button accordion)
Program: J. Haydn, S. Gubaidulina

December 5 - "Jubilee Offering"
(December 1995)
Klavierabend by Mikhail Pletnev
Program: P. Tchaikovsky, F. Schubert

December 14 - "World of Romanticism"
(December 1985)
Klavierabend Eliso Virsaladze
Program: R. Schumann, F. Chopin

December 17 - "Classics and Avant-garde"
(December Nights 1991)
Chamber Ensemble "Moscow Soloists"
Artistic Director and Chief Conductor Yuri Bashmet
Soloists - Boris Berezovsky (piano), Andrey Poskrobko (violin), Mikhail Ashurov (violin)
Program: V. AND. Mozart, A. Schnittke, A. Wustin

The artistic director of the festival is Yuri Bashmet.

The program director of the festival is Julia De-Klerk.

REFERENCE

The annual international festival "December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter" was created in 1981 at the initiative of the director (now president) of the Pushkin Museum. AS Pushkin Irina Antonova and the outstanding pianist Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter. The main idea of the festival is to show the unity of culture through the synthesis of fine arts, music and poetry.

Over the years, brilliant musicians, actors, directors, and poets took part in the festival. Among them are Peter Schreier, Andrash Schiff, Isaac Stern, Gidon Kremer, Andrei Voznesensky, Anatoly Efros, Mikhail Pletnev, Robert Hall, Joshua Bell, Christoph Eschenbach, Victor Tretyakov, Anna Netrebko, Ian Bostridge, Nikolai Lugansky, Evgeny Kisin, Natalia Gutman, Oleg Kagan, Vladimir Vasiliev, Ekaterina Vasilieva, Emerson String Quartet and many others.