St. Petersburg hosts 9th Grand Waltz Festival
19.07.2010 (18:08) | RUVR The Voice of Russia
Popularity of Strauss`s music in Russia began with construction in 1830s of the first railway linking summer imperial residences in Tsar’s Village and Pavlovsk, both outside Saint Petersburg.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The ‘Pleasure Train’ polka by Johann Strauss opened the 9th International Gran Waltz festival at the Throne Hall of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. For the next 11 days beautiful romantic music will be filling the luxurious halls of the State Hermitage, and palaces of Pavlovsk, Tsar’s Village and Peterhof.
‘Brilliant Waltzes’, ‘Viennese Waltz’, ‘The Vienna Ball’, ‘Favorite Waltzes’, ‘...only waltz’- the names of the concerts offered at the festival this time speak for themselves. Beautiful music by Johann Strauss is like time machine, bringing the audiences 150 years back, to the light-hearted atmosphere of royal balls.
Popularity of Strauss`s music in Russia began with construction in 1830s of the first railway linking summer imperial residences in Tsar’s Village and Pavlovsk, both outside Saint Petersburg. The Pavlovsk station was built to welcome guests and offered them a wide range of entertainment activities: restaurants, a gardens with fountains, and a spacious concert hall, where orchestras performed waltzes, polkas, gallops and marches.
Very soon the Pavlovsk station became a center of musical life of Saint Petersburg. In summer of 1856 Johann Strauss performed there for the first time and had a tremendous success with the Russian audience. After that he would go to Russia every summer, for 10 years. His eleventh visit to the country followed after a pause...
The eleven concerts on the festival’s playbill, by the number of seasons Johann Strauss spent in St. Petersburg, feature Russian and Austrian opera and operetta stars, renowned conductors, soloists and orchestras.
Yulia Kantor is the festival’s artistic director said: "Russians admire Strauss as if he were a Russian composer. He wrote some of best-known music during those 11 seasons in St. Petersburg - the “Neva” polka, “Recollections of Pavlovsk”, the “Strelna Terrace” quadrille, “Farewell to St. Petersburg” and many others. Who knows how his life would have turned out, had he not come here, and had he not fallen in love with a wonderful Russian girl, composer Olga Smirnitskaya. It was a long romance with a sad ending. Olga’s parents opposed their marriage, which added a tragic touch to Johann Strauss’ later works. I attend annual sessions of the International Strauss Society in Austria, which bring together people from all over thw world who specialize in light dance classics. Vienna infected the whole of Europe with the “Strauss virus”. Our festival has no analogues. There are concerts devoted to the anthology of the Strauss family but no more such travelling festival that follows the map of Strauss’ concert tours."
The closing “Encore Concert” will feature the Hermitage State Orchestra under the Moscow conductor Vladimir Ziva with the overture to Johann Strauss’ operetta “The Bat”.
www.english.ruvr.ru