The Success of Latvian National Symphony Orchestra with Changing Conductors

The idea that the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra performs throughout the program and the conductors change was clearly successful

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Armands Znotiņš, “Kultūrzīmes”, JSC “Latvijas Mediji”

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The vocal symphonic music concert of the XXVII General Latvian Song and XVII Dance Festival took place on July 4, 2023 at the Latvian National Opera. During the holiday week, there were other valuable cultural events, so we should be glad that the National Academic Men’s and Boys’ Choir of Ukraine “Dudaryk” and the jazz artists of the festival “Rīgas ritmi” also found an audience; but the opera house was undoubtedly full on the 4th of July. What would be the differences from a sacred music concert in Riga Cathedral? First about the positive – in contrast to the Dom Cathedral, in the acoustics of the opera, you could perfectly hear and understand the words sung by the soloists (this also applies to the participation of the actress Ines Kučinska); the idea that the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra performs throughout the program and the conductors change was clearly successful; the scenography of the concert and its visual form left an apt and beautiful impression. What were the predetermined problems and failures? In contrast to the compact program of sacred music, the concert of vocal symphonic music lasted three and a half hours and a little more; its timings were largely filled with works that were once premiered at the Song Festival, and these scores had to remain in the historical archives; the general post-romanticism prevailing in the musical stylistics, with some exceptions, especially in the second part of the program, led to a light evening nap (and this was the first similarity with the equally dubious vocal symphonic program at the 2008 festival); for serious symphonic music concerts, opera acoustics are and remain unsuitable.

It seems that the creators of the program were also aware of the need to somehow keep the audience awake, because it was not for nothing that the bagpipe and drum group “Auļi” was brought in for two works – for Uģ Prauliņš’s “Šūpuldziesmai” (under the supervision of the concert’s artistic director Ainārs Rubiķs) and Zigmar Liepiņš’s vocal symphonic poem “Zziedot I was born while the plant was singing” for a selection of quatrains (read by Jānis Liepiņš). The effect was magnificent, but the involvement of the instrumentalists, the singing of the Latvian Radio Choir and the State Academic Choir “Latvija” and the precision of the conductor’s gesture still did not hide the fact that Prauliņš’s opus (by the way, the only new work in the entire program) does not add anything to the folkloric expression of his previous scores, but in 2008 Liepiņš’s work, written for the Song Festival of 2008, can be perceived as another fragment of the folk epic compiled by Māras Zālīte with the involvement of various composers (basically, we should have stopped here already in 2003 with Jānis Lūsēns’ “Mysteries of Dream and Love”).

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Artur Maskat’s “Capriccio” for oboe and string orchestra reappeared in the repertoire from the above-mentioned 2008 program, and the three-part suite from Jura Carlson’s ballet “Antonija #Silmachi” performed in 2018. Both Guntas Kuzma’s reading and the performance of the oboist Pēteras Endzeļis and the conductor Andras Vecumnieks should be called high-quality interpretations, but again the question is – why exactly these opuses? Artur Muscat and Juri Karlsson have other, much brighter and more original works, where the choice would be much wider than the regularly played pages of Muscat’s “Tango” or Carlson’s ballet “Silver Cloth”. On the other hand, a suite from Imantas Kalniņš’s opera “Matīss, kausu bajārs” was sung by the soloists Viktorija Pakalniece, Rihardas Miller and Jura Jopes under the direction of Ainārs Rubiķas. Very nice, especially because this music has not been heard outside Liepaja, but on the other hand, maybe this opera should have stayed in Liepaja. By the way, the classics of the very first generation did not fare better. Jāzeps Vītola’s cantata “Dziesma” (conductor Viesturs Gailis) had difficulties with the cohesion of the performance (however, praise should be given to the soloist Inga Šļubovska), but Andrej Jurjān’s “Latvian General Song Festival March” (conductor Aleksandrs Viļumanis) was played in the final part of the program, when everyone was already tired The particular scores of Vītols and Jurjānas are usually kept in deep library archives, and that would be the correct order of things.

In the midst of all this, what were the successes of the program? First of all, we should mention with great pleasure the expressive musical language of the second and third parts of Jēkab Jančevski’s 2018 opus “Wings, size and strength”, the colorful compositions of the choir and orchestra and the masterfully created dramaturgical architectonics – in the performance of Aivja Greter, which corresponds to such qualities. Secondly, the brightest, most engaging music part of the classics’ performance, filled with the nuances of instrumentation and the range of emotions, was represented by Jānis Mediņš’s cycle “Five Latvian Folk Songs” (soloist Inga Kalna and conductor Mārtiņš Ozoliņš), “Overture” by Ādolfa Skulte (conducted by Imanta Rešņas), the finale of the piano concerto by Lúcias Garūtas (soloist Reinis Zariņš and conductor Atvars Lakstīgala) – each time in appealing, contrasting, polished interpretations. And, of course, the conductor Andris Poga and the ensemble “Perpetuum Ritmico” ensured the expected success of Tālivalžs Kēniņš’s most contemporary and tense concert for percussion instruments – it remains only to add that instead of the abbreviated version, this score could have sounded in its entirety, if only the program had had a more reasonable choice of repertoire, and in addition to this opus inherited from the 2018 festival, Kēniņas’ oeuvre also includes many other masterpieces that can be played even more simply.

In conclusion, a couple of questions. Where does the strange notion that Latvian music ends with Jēkab Jančevski come from, and why was not a single young composer represented at the Song Festival vocal symphonic music concert – in alphabetical order from Aleksandar Avramec to Annia Anna Zariņa? Where did the works of the older avant-garde authors – Mārtiņš Viļumas, Gustavs Fridrichsons, Santas Ratniece – go? Did it really not occur to anyone that the conventionally lyrical atmosphere could also be dispelled by an opus of Đederts Ramans, Marħers Zariņš or Jāzeps Lipšānas? Finally, coming back to the piano concerto of Lucija Garutas, when will it finally be conducted by Andris Nelsons, Klaus Mekele or Tarmo Peltokoski?

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The idea that the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra performs throughout the program and the conductors change was clearly successful.

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2023-07-14 11:22:21
#Vocal #symphonic #music #Song #Festival