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Five Faces of the Russian Empire New York
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
10/13/2025 - & October 11, 12, 2025 (Annandale-on-Hudson)
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Overture on Russian Themes, Opus 28
Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis: Miske
Vítězslava Kaprálová: Military Sinfonietta, Opus 11
Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky: Festival Coronation March
Boris Liatoshynsky: Symphony No. 3, Opus 50
The Orchestra Now, Leon Botstein (conductor/founder)
B. Liatoshynsky/L. Botstein (© Bard)
“A composer whose voice does not read the heart of the nation has less than no value. I always felt myself to be a national composer in the fullest sense of the word, and I will remain a national composer, proving this not through words but deeds!”
Boris Liatoshynsky
“Orchestration is part of the very soul of the work. A work is thought out in terms of the orchestra, certain tone-colors being inseparable from it in the mind of its creator and native to it from the hour of its birth.”
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
How New Yorker ears pricked up! How eyes danced! The Tōn Orchestra going to spend Monday night with music by Boris Liatoshynsky and Vítězslava Kaprálová!
“Plus an autumnal picture by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis?” asked a 12‑year‑old East Village skateboarder. “Why, that’s ice cream on the cake!”
Jes’kiddin’. Conductor Leon Botstein is famed for uncovering rare works. And last night, his mental archive for endless Central European music reached an apogee of sorts. With one Czech, one Lithuanian, one Ukrainian. One Russian and one Ukrainian-born Russian, Mr. Botstein made a singular concert from the fungible Russian Empire.
With his usual sagacity, the conductor introduced the concert with hints of this picture, much in terms of the present situation.
More important was the whole Russian attitude toward history. Just as his photo‑editors blanked out pictures of political enemies, so Boris Liatoshynsky’s Third Symphony title was changed (he was too much the “bourgeois pacifist”, whatever that means), and the song God Save the Tsar was expunged when Tchaikovsky’s Soviet audiences heard it 80 years after its composition.
Augmenting Mr. Botstein’s choices, the first two works were by synesthesiacs (Rimsky, colors, Ciurlionis, paintings), at least half the pieces used folk songs, and all six showed The Tōn Orchestra at its best.
That is, after 10 years, the players were disciplined, followed strictly Mr. Botstein’s baton, and were colorful enough. I won’t use the word “inspired” since four works were new to me. But when asked to blaze forth as in the Third Symphony, they showed their youthful exuberance.
The single familiar work was Rimsky-Korsakov’s Overture on Russian Themes. As in the prologue, this was Rimsky the Orchestrator. The themes–religious, patriotic, folkish–were familiar indeed, having been used by endless Russian composers (including Rimsky’s own Russian Easter Overture), but were clothed with stunning color.
Following that was the one dismal meandering piece, Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis’ In the Forest. As a picture-painter, the artist-composer might have talent. Here, the “Forest” was less the dark, frightening, bird-and-butterfly forests of Mahler or Wagner or Brothers Grimm. I have never been to a Lithuanian forest, but Mr. Ciurlionis’ woodland was of tangled roots, quags, marshes, plains and flatlands all hidden by a thick orchestral mist.
One pictured the composer, as gloomy as his picture below, easel in one hand, music-staved-notebook in the other, slavering in mud, wind and torrential rain.
M. K. Ciurlionis/V. Kaprálová
On YouTube, I had listened to the following work, by Czech‑born Vítězslava Kaprálová. She was prodigious, had studied with the best (including Martinů and probably Nadia Boulanger), had conducted orchestras throughout Europe–and had died at the tender age of 25.
My initial Internet-listening Military Sinfonietta showed only de rigueur attention to military drums and trumpets. More to the point, this was a witty 18 minutes, with jaunty rhythms, eccentric modulations and inventions galore. The snare drums and trumpets were not as hard‑driving as they were slightly satirical.
The Tōn Orchestra was rarely jaunty, they modulated carefully and came to life only with those military tattoos.
Again, it was the “great” name which triumphed. Tchaikovsky lived on financial commissions and his early Festival Coronation was such an unpleasant offer (yeah, a Tsar’s coronation) that he initially avoided it. At its best it could only resemble bombast works like Wellington’s Victory and Shostakovich’s Song of the Forests.
Both of which I guiltily adore.
The Festival Coronation was actually fun. Packed to the brim with anthems, hymns and old marches, a kind of danceable 1812 Overture. Hardly great music, but again, I loved it.
For the finale, I expected drudge. A 45-minute four‑movement symphony by Boris Liatoshynsky, a piece about the German massacres of his native Ukraine. How much could I take?
And oh, how wrong I could be.
This was, yes, a war symphony, akin to Shostakovich’s war symphonies and Prokofiev’s sonatas. And yes, Shosty’s influence was as great as that of Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Considering its 1951 premiere, this was quite a musical coup. And smashingly original.
The subtitle was “Peace Will Destroy War.” Thus one expected (and accepted) three movements of minor‑key clashing. And a finale dissolving into a chorale‑style major key.
What I hadn’t expected was the sharp, dissonant, mesmeric creation here. That first movement had a crisp Shostakovich military chaos, yet one couldn’t turn away from the opening theme.
This was presumably a Ukrainian folk song, and its first three notes would be played throughout all four movements. The song blasted through this opening, brass calls ricocheting like today’s Russian bombs across Kiev.
The Andante used the first three notes, repeated like a clock–or time bomb–ticking away against a harp. The notes were foreboding, the orchestration changed, yet the ticking didn’t stop save for a mordant march. The composer’s third movement had a frightening direction: Allegro feroce. And ferocious indeed was The Tōn Orchestra, with Mr. Botstein leading the troops.
The finale was as exciting as anything by Shosty. It demanded virtuosity–fanfare brass, fortissimo bassoons, throbbing strings, unexpected juxtapositions, deathly war against passionate peace.
Yet I had one caveat. If this, blazing, strident finale was “Peace”, give me a bar or two of Ciurlionis’ swampy In the Forest. For this was the noisiest peace I’d ever heard!
Again, just joking. This was a fabulous work, played with agitation, fever and Scythian barbarity. Mr. Botstein’s choice here was a brilliant one. And The Tōn Orchestra played it with all the energy the brilliant Symphony deserved.
Harry Rolnick
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