CDs
NF/PMA 9907
SERGEI BANEVICH
DMITRY SMIRNOV
Choral works
This disc presents the St. Petersburg Children’s Choir of Television and Radio under the baton of Stanislav Fedorovich Gribkov performing chorus compositions written in different periods by Sergei Banevich and Dmitry Smirnov, outstanding Russian composers who live and work in Petersburg. The ties of long, sincere, and tender artistic friendship between the composers and the Children’s Choir has greatly encouraged creation of excellent pieces of music lightened with bright and pure poetry. The joint work of Sergei Banevich and Dmitry Smirnov with the Children’s Choir has definitely made an enormous valuable contribution to the noble spiritual atmosphere of Petersburg on the eve of the new millennium
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SERGEI BANEVICH |
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1. |
Homesickness |
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2. |
Pizzicato For A Dwarf |
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3. |
20. To My Girl |
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4. |
Traveller’s Song |
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5. |
Bless Animals And Children |
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DMITRY SMIRNOV |
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6. |
Advance… |
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7. |
A Dream |
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8. |
The Annunciation |
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9. |
26. I Do Love You… |
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We Chant To You, concerto for homogeneous choir in 5 parts |
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10. |
We Chant To You |
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11. |
O My Soul, Praise Lord |
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12. |
Now You Let Me Go |
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13. |
O Quiet Light |
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14. |
Glorify The Name Of Lord |
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Three songs for children’s choir a cappella to words by F.G. Lorca |
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15. |
A Sevillan Ditty |
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16. |
A Silly Ditty |
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17. |
A Lizard Stands And Weeps |
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SERGEI BANEVICH |
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18. |
The Song For Josephine. Words by T. Kalinina. Arranged for children’s choir by S. Gribkov |
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19. |
Constellation. Words by T. Kalinina. |
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20. |
Take It With You. . Words by N. Denisov. |
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St. Petersburg Children’s Choir of Television and Radio |
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Stanislav Gribkov (conductor): 1-5, 10-19 |
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Igor Gribkov (conductor): 6-9 |
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Lyudmila Ralko (piano): 6 - 9 |
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Albert Asadullin (vocal): 18 |
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Stanislav Vazhov (arrangement): 18 |
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Dmitry Kizhaev (guitars): 19 |
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Soloists: |
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Daria Semenkova: 5 |
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Recording: Boris Vaszhenko |
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Sergei Petrovich BANEVICH was born on December 2, 1941 in Okhansk, Perm Oblast, as a wartime evacuee, and returned to Leningrad together with his family in 1944. In 1966 he graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory, and later completed his postgraduate studies in Composition. His professors were Galina Ustvolskaya and Orest Yevlakhov, pupils of D.D. Shostakovich.
Banevich is the author of more than one hundred compositions in diverse genres. He is one of the leading composers of today writing for musical theatre, a recognized classic in the art of music addressed to children, an enlightener, the author of the concept of the International Children’s Festival of Music in St. Petersburg, and its artistic director from 1990 till 2000.
The music of Sergei Banevich is widely known and loved in Russia. His musical productions stay onstage for many years, with ‘record’ numbers of performances.
Among the compositions of Banevich are operas The Story of Kai and Gerda after the tale “The Snow Queen” by Andersen (performed on the stage of the Mariinsky Theatre since 1979), A Lone White Sail, Ferdinand The Splendid, A Town In The Sniff–Box, The Wolves And The Sheep after the comedy by A. N. Ostrovsky, opera ballet The Little Mermaid, musicals Mess-Mend, The Staunch Tin Soldier, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, operettas Sorochintsy Fair and The Treasure Island, dramatic musical The Drummer’s Fate, fantasia ballet Petersburg after Andrei Bely, chamber operas The Girl With Matches (co-authorship with D. Smirnov) and How We Switched On The Night, vocal chains “Vassilievsky Island”, „Five Poems by Anna Akhmatova”, “Arias From Unwritten Operas” (after books of F. Dostoyevsky, F. Scott Fitzgerald, T. Mann, S. Aleksiyevich, L. Petrushevskaya, K. Paustovsky), The Petersburg Litany for homogeneous choir a cappella to lyrics by A. Akhmatova, instrumental compositions, music for drama, puppet, television and radio performances, to cinema and television films (“Niccolo Paganini”, “Professor Dowel’s Will”, “About You”, “The Follower”, “End of the Night”, “The Pickwick Club”, “Freeze, Die, Rise”, “Racket”, “The Mole”, and more, over 30 in all), such songs as “Endless Road” and “The Sun Will Wake Up”, and musical “The Children’s World”.
Bless Animals And Children, concerto for choir and piano, composed for the Children’s Choir of Television and Radio and first performed on May 25, 1996 at the Choir Chapel Hall within the framework of the International Musical Spring in St. Petersburg Festival. The work is dedicated to Evgenia Pavlovna Kiyanova, a brilliant editor of the Petersburg Radio. It was she who advised the composer to consider a book of poetry for children written by Sasha Chorny in his years of emigration. The concerto features the poems “To My Little Friend”, “Skrut”, “Mum’s Song”, “The Train”, “The Christmas Rhymes”.
In his foreword to the first publication of the concerto, the author mused over the unique poetic world of the concerto, and declared one of his major creeds as an artist: “Bless Animals And Children is a story of childhood, of first love, of touching and unrepeatable adventures and frolics that are permissible and quite at home in a child’s imagination only; of homeland and of nostalgia… This Concerto is probably an effort to produce a lyrical and philosophical opus to be performed by children, but intended not only for them, but for grown-ups also. In fact, a conscious judgement of life uttered by an adult is a method, a technique of comprehension of the world — and a tool to influence the world. Indeed, to keep your childhood, childish “attitudes”, emotions, smells, rhythms, feelings, and to carry them in you through the life, means to remain true to your own self…”
The Song For Josephine was performed in the comedy „The Sleuth, or Nobody“ (based on Astrid Lindgren’s story “The Adventures of Kalle Blumqvist”) staged at the Leningrad Drama Theatre on Liteiny in 1979.
The song Constellation was written by the composer with the Petersburg poetess Tatiana Kalinina in 1997 for the 1st Festival of Russia’s Children’s Home Talents.
Take It With You is the final song of the characters in the extravaganza musical The Staunch Tin Soldier (after the tale by H. K. Andersen). The musical was first staged in 1985 and has been performed over 400 times at the Baltiysky Dom Theatre.
Dmitry Valentinovich SMIRNOV was born on December 7, 1952 in Leningrad. He graduated from the Leningrad Conservatory in 1975 in Chorus Conducting with A. V. Mikhailov, then in 1978 in Opera and Symphony Conducting with E.P. Grikurov, and completed his postgraduate course in 1980.
Smirnov is one of the most colourful, original, and important chorus composers of today. His compositions honour the repertoires of many choirs in Russia and abroad, are broadly performed in more than 40 countries, and are inevitably acclaimed both by professional musicians and audiences.
Among the compositions of Dmitry Smirnov are opera Yerma (after the play of F. G. Lorca), chamber opera The Girl With Matches (co-authorship with S. Banevich), Musical Offering (Меssa brevis, a tribute to the memory of I. Stravinsky) for choir and instrumental ensemble, Suite to Lyrics by English and Scottish Poets for choir and two pianos, poem The Masters for narrator, male choir, brass and percussion to poetry of A. Voznesensky, cantata The Midnight Verses (to words by A. Akhmatova), Minor Cantata to Lyrics of German Poets, concertos for mixed choir a cappella to poems of N. Nekrasov, Assenting To The World (to words by A. Block), Insomnia (verses of M. Tsvetayeva), I Was Born In ’94, I Was Born In ’92 (words by O. Mandelshtam), The Birth Of A Wing (words by Y. Moritz, A. Tarkovsky, B. Pasternak), The Cypress Casket (words by I. Annensky), Concerto to Words of Russian Poets, Triptych for Choir to Words by A. Isaakian, Selected Prayers of St. John Chrysostom, minor choral pieces, instrumental chamber music, music for theatre and cinema.
The concerto Annunciation was composed in 1984 to the order from a female choir of the city of Plovdiv, Bulgaria, to lyrics of a world classic, famous Bulgarian poet Peyo Yavorov (1873–1914).
The choral concerto We Chant To You to texts of Orthodox sermons was composed to order for the Children’s Choir of Television and Radio in 1998 and dedicated to the 200th anniversary of A. S. Pushkin. The premiere of the concerto was given on March 24, 1999 at the Grand Philharmonic Hall of St. Petersburg. It was the opening day of the 10th International Children’s Festival of Music dedicated to commemoration of the great Russian poet.
Three Songs for Children’s Choir A Cappella to words by F. G. Lorca were written in 1988, also to be first performed by the St. Petersburg Children’s Choir conducted by Stanislav Gribkov.
Lyubov Vvedenskaya
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