Oh, how these people have suffered

Russia went through hell in the 20th century (at present it appears to have graduated into purgatory), and its many great artists bore witness to its suffering, either by confronting it directly; or by dreaming, like the early Christians, of the peace beyond the apocalypse; or by simply getting out and moving on. The Fine Art Music Company, a too-well-kept secret in Philadelphia, presented a taste of that survivalist spirit over the weekend with perhaps the strongest program we’ve had from it -- two hours music and poetry that was rooted in Russia’s so-called Silver Age and carried over into the Stalinist era and beyond. 

The composers on the bill were Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Pärt and Schnittke. The poetry, read sometimes in Russian, sometimes in translation, by mezzo-soprano Tatyana Rashkovsky, included the work of Osip Mandelstam, Alexander Blok, and, most prominently, Anna Akhmatova, whose biography  reads like a summary of what befell the country at large.

Performances at the Ethical Society Sunday were uniformly excellent. Rollin Wilber was in top form in three of Rachmaninoff’s Preludes from Op. 32, as was Kasia Marzec-Salwinski in Scriabin’s Sonata-Fantasy Op. 19 and four early Preludes by Schnittke, which have been discovered published only recently. (For all we know, Wilber said during the Q and A, it might have been a US premiere.)

Cellist Yoni Draiblate added sensitive readings of Schnittke’s Musica Nostalgica and Pärt’s Fratres, though I found the pieces themselves unremarkable. Rashkovsky, in songs by Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff, was thrilling.

It was a heavy afternoon, but Draiblate and Wilber ended it on a hopeful note with Rachmaninoff’s touching Vocalise, which, in context, felt like a pale ray of sunshine breaking through the gloom. 

The poetry of oppression raised inevitable comparisons to current political situation in the US (the woman sitting in front of me wore a pink pussy cap), but Rashkovsky put it in perspective after the concert. She began life under the Brezhnev regime, she said, and very little can scare her now. While hardly a ringing endorsement of our new chief executive, it makes one grateful for large mercies.

One side note: Kasia and I had a disagreement over the meaning of this verse by Akhmatova, written in 1921:

Don’t torment your heart with earthly joys,

Don’t cling to your wife or your home,

Take the bread from your child

To give to a stranger.

And be the humblest servant of the one

Who was your bitterest foe,

And call the beast of the forest brother,

And don’t ask God for anything, ever.

Kasia saw it as advocating an otherwordly, Christlike ethic of selflessness and renunciation. I took it to be an ironic manifesto of the revolutionary regime, stating, in effect, that from now on life will be miserable, and one has no choice but to submit. I am strengthened in my opinion by the poem’s timing: It was written the same year Akhmatova’s former husband was executed by the Bolsheviks. On the other hand, I must admit my understanding of poetry has often been wide of the mark. I have a talent for missing the point. My college essay on Robinson’s “How Annandale Went Out,” for example, remains one of the signal embarrassments of my life.

Overlooked concerts

Performers in the Oct. 29 program of Russian music and poetry, from left: Katarzyna, Tatyana, Inna, and Rollin.

I let my blogging lapse for a while, and I’ve neglected to mention two memorable performances I attended earlier in the fall, both in Philadelphia.

The first was a Russian salon at the Institute for International Culture out on Lancaster Avenue. It took place Oct. 29, on the evening of the first snowfall we’ve had this season, which was appropriate, I think. Tatyana Rashkovsky sang, and Katarzyna Marzec-Salwinski and Rollin Wilber played piano. The music was by a bunch of Russians, including Rimsky, Rachmaninoff, Borodin, Scriabin and a young Boris Pasternak. My friend Inna Lobova-Heasley read Russian poetry from the early 20th century. The room was intimate, the performances committed, but Russian music is Russian music, and there’s only so much of it I can take. Intermission lasted almost an hour as guests consumed potatoes, blini with chives sour cream, caviar (which I avoided), and vodka punch (which I also avoided). I asked Inna how long these Russian soirees were supposed to last.

“Until the vodka runs out,” she said.

The other program was held Nov. 12 at Ravenhill Chapel on the campus of Philadelphia University - another concert Inna did the publicity for. It was a beautiful autumn afternoon. Lyric Fest presented premieres by Maurice Wright, Curt Cacioppo and Allen Krantz. Performers were soprano Elizabeth Weigle, baritone William Sotne, and the Ravenhill String Quartet, which consists of young musicias from the Philadelphia orchestra. The centerpiece of the program was Wright’s “To Kiss the Earth” for baritone and string quartet. The words were taken from the diaries of the Bauhaus potter Marguerite Wildenhain, translated into English by Stone, who was a student of Wildenhain and the motivating force behind setting the diaries to music. All three pieces on the program were well-crafted and attractive, though I can’t say much more about them so long after first hearing.

Wright remembered my earlier blog post criticizing his percussion piece “Movement in Time,” and he graciously gave me a recording of it.

After the concert, Inna, Krantz and I walked over to Suzanne DuPlantis’ home for a reception and buffet dinner. (The spread was as memorable as the concert.) Suzanne, accompanied by Laura Ward at the piano, sang La Vie en Rose and a song by Michael Tilson Thomas about the simple joys of life. The first stanza offered thanks for a wonderful plate of herring, and it made me uncomfortable. I know we should be grateful for our sustenance, but do we really need to rub in our status at the top of the food chain? I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor fish.

So we sat, we talked, we had a nice schmeer.

It’s a clear, cold afternoon, and I’m inside. My bicycle chain broke last Sunday afternoon while I was out riding, forcing me two walk several miles home, and I haven’t bothered to have take it to the shop for repair.