The musical heritage of East and West has intertwined through centuries of history, and this concert offers a compelling example of that fusion. Inspired by the Exposition Universelle in Paris, Camille Saint-Saëns created a unique synthesis of Western and Eastern influences.
While the music from the ballet Gayane by Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian has long ago found a place in the Western concert repertoire, the work of his contemporary, Azerbaijani author Kara Karayev, remains a true rarity on today’s concert repertoires.
The Belgrade Philharmonic’s very own percussionist duo, Aleksandar Radulović and Ivan Marjanović, appear as soloists in a piece by contemporary French composer Emmanuel Séjourné, blending classical and popular music idioms.
In 1869, Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was at the height of his career, with a highly respected position as organist at the main court church of the Madeleine. He was an active player and composer, and a few years earlier he had won the Prix de Rome, as well as praise from Franz Liszt, who declared him the best organist of his time. At that time, he wrote a march called East and West, as the first of four pieces for brass band for the gala evening of the Association of Fine Arts on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition of oriental art. A later performance was recorded at the Universal Exhibition of 1878, conducted by the composer, and 47 years after the first performance, Saint-Saëns orchestrated the work.
As the title suggests, the work evokes Western and Eastern musical stereotypes that were familiar to Europeans of the time, in the compressed form of Liszt’s symphonic poems. The first section is characterized by strong marching rhythmic patterns typical of Western music, the central section contains elements associated with the tradition of Eastern music, while the final section unites them in a grand finale.
The rich career of Emmanuel Séjourné (1961) takes place in three fields: as a composer, percussionist and professor. The winner of many composition awards, in addition to an understandably large number of works for percussion, he also wrote a large number of orchestral, chamber and choral works, as well as music for theater and television. Séjourné’s music is primarily rhythmic and energetic, with inspiration originating from the Western musical tradition and popular culture (jazz, rock music of other non-European cultures).
His works are performed by renowned orchestras such as the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Luxembourg Philharmonic, the Freiburg Philharmonic, the Osaka Philharmonic, the Orchestra of Romansh Switzerland, the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra and many others. As a prominent member of the percussion community, his works are performed and recorded by many of his colleagues, and he himself has premiered over a hundred works by other authors.
Since its creation in 2012, the Double Concerto for Vibraphone, Marimba and Orchestra has been performed on stages from Bulgaria to China, Switzerland, Germany, Poland, Brazil, Turkey, Korea and France. It stands out for its warmth of sound, clear melody and pronounced communicativeness. The solo instruments in this piece appear as two voices of one thought, sometimes leading a dialogue, sometimes merging into a single musical color. The first movement brings energy and movement, and is based on rhythmic clarity and a bright sound character. The second movement is the lyrical center of the work: gentle, cantabile and meditative, with an atmosphere of inner peace, while the third movement restores liveliness and virtuosity, with dance rhythms and a playful dialogue between soloist and orchestra.
The work is today one of the most performed contemporary percussion concertos — not only because of its technical attractiveness, but also because of its ability to convey to the audience sincere emotion and poetics of sound.
Azerbaijani composer Kara Karayev (1918-1982) lived and created in the former Soviet Union. He was born in Baku and studied at the Moscow Conservatory, as one of the best students of Dmitri Shostakovich. After his studies, he returned to his hometown, achieving a fruitful creative and pedagogical career, along with active work as a critic and music writer.
Karayev’s artistic poetics is characterized by a highly expressive creative expression, with the harmonic and melodic characteristics of traditional Azerbaijani music. He wrote in various genres that include theater music, musicals, opera, ballet, symphonic and chamber works, cantatas, film music and music for children. His musical models were Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and he was also attracted to Albanian, Vietnamese, Turkish, Bulgarian, Spanish, African and Arabic music.
Karayev’s most famous work is the ballet Seven Beauties, written in 1947-48, on the occasion of the 800th birthday of the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi. The plot is based on the motifs of Ganjavi’s poem The Seven Beauties from 1197. The sumptuous, expressive and romantic music, with a multitude of dance folklore elements, best represents his individual musical style. The ballet suite has been prepared for concert performance.
The Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian (1903-1978) is noted in the history of music as one of the leading composers of the past century. He was born into an Armenian family in Tbilisi, and at the age of eighteen he went to Moscow, where he spent his entire working and living life. Together with his contemporaries, Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev, with whom he marked the musical life of this period, he was called the so-called titans of Soviet music.
Khachaturian’s creative opus is very extensive and encompasses various genres: orchestral, vocal-instrumental, chamber, concerto, film and stage music, and his most significant works include concertos for violin, cello and piano, concert rhapsodies for the same instruments, three symphonies and the ballets Gayane and Spartacus.
Gayane is a ballet in four acts, composed in 1939, and was originally titled Happiness. It was revised in 1941–42, with a new librettist and choreographer, and was performed by the Kirov Ballet in Perm during the evacuation during World War II and broadcast on the Radio. The score was subsequently revised in 1952 and 1957, and the composer also created suites for concert performance. The most famous number from this ballet is the Sabre Dance, which is one of the most famous works of classical music. On this occasion, the numbers from the ballet score are performed: the Dance of Welcome, the Lyrical Duet, and the Lezginka.
The original plot follows the story of a young Armenian woman whose patriotic convictions conflict with her feelings after she discovers her husband’s betrayal. In later years, the plot was modified several times, with the story emphasizing romance as opposed to nationalistic overtones.
Danica Maksimovic
