The Red Corpus of Taras Shevchenko National University has hosted, with assistance from the French Embassy in Ukraine, this year’s first Christmas recital of Ihor Blazhkov and his Perpetuum Mobile Orchestra.
Every performance of Perpetuum Mobile is the discovery of an unknown work, a new figure, or a new page in the history of music. Ihor Blazhkov’s numerous projects return to audiences undeservingly forgotten opuses by Bach, Telemann, Pergolesi, and other great masters, as well as modern music scores. It is Perpetuum Mobile that performed for the first time the works of Valentyn Silvestrov, Yevhen Stankovych, and Valentyn Bibik. The orchestra played to a full house at its recent and almost unadvertised Christmas Concert of French Music. This time the audience was given a unique opportunity to discover the heritage of Rameau.
Jean-Philippe Rameau, a contemporary of Bach and Handel, lived and composed music almost three centuries ago. Today, when we know more or less well his chamber pieces for the harpsichord, his operas, ballets and religious music remain practically unknown to Ukrainian music enthusiasts. Incidentally, some Rameau scores are kept in the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic library for the Court Orchestra, and it is thanks to Mr. Blazhkov that Laboravi and Quam Dilecta Tabernacula, two motets from that collection, were played in Kyiv.
Rameau is one of the most brilliant and venerated figures in French musical culture. When the composer, also Louis XV’s court musician, was still alive, his works evoked public rapture and simultaneously heated disputes. It is difficult for twenty-first century audiences to believe that Rameau’s contemporaries criticized him for too loud accompaniment of singers and “pro-Italian diabolical” sonatas. But time has put the record straight. Ihor Blazhkov emphasized in his introductory speech before the recital that Rameau’s compositions resemble neither German nor Italian music, the pacesetter of that times. This is precisely rococo refined French music sometimes displaying sad, dramatic, or pathetic notes.
The recital featured the works of various genres: the first suite from the music to the lyrical comedy Platea (1745), the cantata Le Berger Fidele (1728) and the church motets mentioned. Taking part in the recital were Iryna Ziabchenko (soprano), Vira Pototska (alto), Volodymyr Tutchenko (tenor), Oleh Chernoshchokov (bass), as well as the Academic Choir of choral conducting department students at the Kyiv National University of Culture and the Arts conducted by Dmytro Radyk. The efforts of participants were crowned with success: the music indeed sounded in the spirit of its time — clear, refined, and noble.
French music historian Samuel once wittily noted that “Rameau’s pieces have long been kept inside a secret closet in the fine company of Johann Bach on the right and Antonio Vivaldi on the left.” In the epoch of romanticism the closet was slightly opened, leaving Rameau alone. Now, by all indications, his turn has come.
