Scriabin Petrenko Gerstein

Vasily Petrenko and the Oslo Philharmonic fire up Scriabin’s forward-thinking ideas about the colour organ in this multimedial performance of his glittering, existential Prometheus. Glitter and colour also feature in Stravinsky’s Fireworks, an explosive orchestral work in true Russian tradition. We also play some of the most full-bodied orchestra music opera composers of the 19th century could produce as symphonic gems from Wagner’s final great masterpiece, Parsifal, sound in Leinsdorf’s Suite.

Opera directors face great challenges in staging Richard Wagner’s (1813-1883) Parsifal (1882). Its political and religious controversies are as powerful as its musical innovation. Nevertheless, we wish to draw attention to just how masterful an orchestra composer Wagner really was, and in Parsifal we can experience his most harmonically daring, colourful and grandiose orchestra excerpts.

In the midst of the diversity of Modernism which Wagner had prepared the ground for, Aleksandr Scriabin (1871-1915) counts among the strangest elements. Even more extreme than Wagner in his views, Scriabin believed in fusing all art forms and sensory expressions in a great mystery which could purify mankind. A part of this was the colour organ, which will be manifested tonight by Oslo Concert Hall. And it won’t be just the hall which will be awash with colour; the music is equally vivid. In Prometheus (1910), Scriabin bases his work on unusual scales and on his so-called “mystical accord”. The work follows mankind from a mysterious primal darkness to the ecstatic enlightenment of consciousness.

Like Scriabin, Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) had not only Wagner, but the Russian national school as his starting point. His Fireworks (1909) still follows the style of Rimsky-Korsakov, the music crackling with colours, sounds and adventurously melodic conjurings, while Modernism quietly awaits, right around the corner.

(Text: Thomas Erma Møller; Translation: Sarah Osa; In photo: Kirill Gerstein; Photo: Marco Borggreve)