YEVGENY MRAVINSKY (1 903-1 988) A TRULY NOBLE CONDUCTOR

An aristocrat who could also make music

The classical architectural lines of St Petersburg, built on a foundation of solid . rock, epitomise the music-making of the city's most famous conductor, Yevgeny Mravinsky. 'It's the real thing!' was how Fritz Stiedry, his predecessor at the Philharmonic, described Mravinsky's reading of Tchaikovslcy's Fifth in the mid1930s. And even before he won the All-Union Conductors' Competition in 1938, the doyen of Soviet music Boris Asaeyey was anticipating a great career for him, calling him 'a future conductor of world class'.

Born into an aristocratic family, whose forefathers had fought in the Napoleonic Wars (his family credo was 'to serve the Emperor'), Mravinsky had music in his genes. His aunt Yevgeniya Mravina, a principal soprano at the Mariinsky Opera, sang in premieres of operas by Rimslcy-Korsakov and was much admired by Tchaikovslcy. From the age of six Mravinslcy became a frequent visitor to the Mariinsky, and a performance under the baton of Emil Cooper inspired him to become a conductor.

With the Bolshevik revolution, members of the gentry were barred from studying at the Conservatory, but another aunt — Alexandra Kollontai, who was a Minister for Welfare in the Bolshevik government — wrote a letter recommending her nephew to Alexander Glazunov, so securing his entry to the Conservatory. There he studied under Nikolai Malko and Alexander Gauk, who taught a whole generation of conductors and was himself a disciple of Arthur Nikisch.

Mravinsky started his career at the Mariinsky, then renamed the State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet. Already he had made his debut with the Leningrad Philharmonic in the summer of 1931, following his graduation from the Conservatory, and became a frequent guest conductor there from 1934. He gave their opening concert in the 1937/38 season; later that season, during the height of Stalin's purges, he premiered Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony.

One cannot overestimate the significance of this concert; it seemed to the audience that this music was about their lives, their experiences, their fears. Mravinsky also had the unenviable task of resurrecting the career of a composer condemned by a leading article in Pravda, and the fate of Shostakovich's latest symphony appeared to lie in his hands. The result was an astonishing performance and the audience went wild: men and women wept openly during the Largo, and as the finale progressed listeners began to rise gradually to their feet, greeting its final chords with tumultuous applause as Mravinsky waved the score above his head.

Mravinsky on tour

It wasn't until the mid-1950s that Mravinslcy, thanks to his tours and recordings, became known in the West (though he only visited Britain and America once). His motto for touring was simple — 'the orchestra should play no worse than at home'. Many of his recordings are from live concerts on tour; he performed BartOk in

Budapest, Brahms and Beethoven in Berlin, and Mozart and Bruckner in Vienna. But his most significant interpretation was of Tchaikovsky's symphonies on his first major tour in 1956. Peter Heyworth wrote in The Observer that 'his readings have a prodigious force ann excitement.. .an epic grandeur missing in Western interpretation'. The Wiener Zeitung published the following notice: 'the Leningrad Philharmonic is an orchestra of the highest class...Yevgeny Mravinsky is a great master and teacher of this orchestra'. It was in this atmosphere of sensation and discovery that Mravinsky's recordings of Tchaikovsky symphonies for Deutsche Grammophon were made. They are unsurpassed for their almost shocking lack of sentimentality, power, emotional breadth and magnificent virtuosity.

Mravinsky's repertoire was extensive. At its core were the symphonies of Beethoven,

Brahms, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich. He also programmed Handel, Bach, Wagner overtures, symphonies and ballets by Glazunov, as well as symphonies by little-known Soviet composers such as Klyuzner, Lyatoshinsky and Salmanov. Mravinsky effectively defined Russia's performing tradition for composers as diverse as Bruckner, BartOk, Honegger, Hindemith, Strauss, Prokofiev and Stravinsky.

Mravinsky live

His many live recordings — of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms or Sibelius — allow us to judge his music-making at its best. The listener feels himself at the heart of the creative process, as if the music is being played for the first and last time. Indeed, although he made studio recordings between 1938-61, Mravinsky regarded performing to a live audience as sacred and felt that studio conditions presented an unwelcome barrier between the audience and orchestra.

So what was a Mravinsky concert like? Gennady Rozhdestvensky recalls hearing Mravinsky's performance just after the war of Scriabin's Poem of Ecstasy: 'in the build up to the finale I felt myself, involuntarily, rising to my feet in exultation at this magnificent, tumultuous climax.' Another first-hand account comes from a teacher at the Conservatory, Era Baruchaeva, who attended his concerts in Leningrad and recalls a stunning performance of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite: 'it was if a completely new work was being performed — the effect was shattering', while in a performance of Bruckner's Ninth, 'the great Adagio had all those around me in tears at the end'. Every performance was different, as former Mravinsky pupil Mariss Jansons once made clear to me: 'I heard three completely different interpretations of the Fifth Symphony in as many years.'

Mravinsky is, of course, most closely associated with Shostakovich. After his triumph with the Fifth he was entrusted with the premieres of six more of his symphonies. Where he didn't conduct the first performance — for instance, of the Seventh, llth and 15th — Shostakovich said that

Mravinsicy was recognised both abroad and at home, where he was made People's Artist of the USSR in 1954 and a Hero of Socialist Labour in 1973

Mravinsky gave the 'real' premieres of those works. Their friendship helped Mravinsky penetrate deep into the creational process; he was the interpreter, or more accurately the co-creator of some of the century's most tragic symphonic canvasses. Mravinsky worshipped Shostakovich and regarded his work with him as the most important aspect of his career. It was only the discovery that Mravinslcy's wife was dying from an incurable disease which stopped him from touring for three years and which led him to decline giving the premiere of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony.

A man of principle Incredibly, he was never a member of the Communist party and never compromised himself with the Soviet authorities. He refused to sign a letter condemning Solzhenitsyn and was barred from touring for several years. Opposing anti-semitism, Mravinsky demanded that Jews were recruited to leading positions in the orchestra. Summoned before the Politburo, Mravinslcy was asked why musicians were leaving his orchestra for Israel, to which he courageously replied that the reason for them leaving 'is not because of me but you and your policies!'

Mravinslcy's conducting style was similar to that of Fritz Reiner or George SzeII - unhistrionic, detailed and accomplished with minimal movement. His performances were distinguished by an amazing flexibility in dynamics and balance of sound; they were at once strict and severe, yet also hugely expressive, with a deep philosophical thread running through them. He was a fanatical rehearser, putting in eight or 10 rehearsals even for well-known repertoire. Sometimes he would spend as much as a year studying a work and then decline to perform it.

Central to his character was his affinity with God and Nature. He lived modestly, preferring to spend his private hours enjoying the countryside. This characteristic seems at one with his noble performances. Abbado, Celibidache, Igor Markevitch, Maazel, Muti, and Giulini have all acknowledged their debt to Mravinslcy, a legend in his own time and for all time.

Gregor Tassie

An extract from the Largo of Shostakovich's Eighth can be heard on track 12 of the cover CD