If to recall the music projects realized by maestro Kofman in Ukraine recently: “Great Names,” “Ukrainian Avant-garde,” “Geniuses and Dilettantes,” “What is our life? A Game!”, “Northern Express Train,” “Creation of Prometheus,” “Roman Kofman and his friends,” “Transformation,” the International Festival “Week of High Classics with Roman Kofman,” etc., each of them became an event of cultural life of our capital. Like the philharmonic cycles “All Symphonies” by great composers, Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Mozart (for the first time all 41 symphonies by Mozart were performed in Ukraine by one orchestra)!
The new cycle of current season, “All Symphonies by Johannes Brahms,” (there are four of them) was opened by Symphony No. 2 in D major performed by the Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonic Society, chief conductor: Roman Kofman. Many people in the audience actually discovered Brahms, whose music is not frequently performed in our country.
The work of conductor and musicians is a mysterious category for uninitiated people, for Kofman and his team it means achievement of filigree technique and flawless sounding of each part. But in which way handwritten score is wonderfully transformed into a movable performance, which is woven of melodies full of life? Everything was present here: tragedy and tenderness, peace and war, love and death. The mosaic of colors of Austrian nature on the banks of Woerthersee was shining; the masterpiece was created in this locality during summer 1877, in an impulse of inspiration.
The premiere of the Symphony No. 2 in Vienna Philharmonic Society (1877) conducted by the well-known conductor Hans Richter was a triumph: the composer was called to the stage after each part, and the third part was immediately performed encore at the demand of the audience. Somewhat more than 100 years later, Kyivites, unable to cope with emotions, in spite of the rules applauded in the breaks between the parts, like at the world premiere in Vienna. Everything ended with ovation. They say that when Roman Kofman is at conductor’s stand, the souls of composers fly into the hall. I think the great German symphonist (the contemporaries called Brahms this way) would be thankful to Ukrainian musicians.
During the Brahms Concert No. 1 for the piano with orchestra in D minor the solo was performed by Federico Colli. This young Italian musician, participant of the large-scale philharmonic festival “Suono Italiano” (Italian Sound), held on the occasion of Italy’s presiding over the work of the Council of the European Union (with the assistance of the Embassy of the Italian Republic in Ukraine and Italian institute of culture in Ukraine). The pianist showed such a level of performance when virtuosity combined with thoughtful interpretation gives way to beauty of sound, revealing the meaning of Biblical truths encoded in the music of expectations and hopes of the German genius. And Federico Colli performed encore Fantasia by Mozart and showed fantastic pianissimo on the verge of silence.
Federico Colli was born in Brescia in 1988, studied at Milano Conservatoire and Mozarteum University Salzburg. The high awards of the musician include the first prize of the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg (2011), gold medal at the International Piano Competition in Leeds (2012). He has performed in most prestigious concert halls of the world, gone on tours across Germany, Austria, Japan, Great Britain, France, Poland, Mexico, and Brazil. In 2014 he made a debut at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London within the framework of the International Piano Cycle.
“For the first time I am performing in Kyiv and for the first time I play the First Concert by Brahms: I decided to make a double premiere,” Federico COLLI admitted to The Day. I think Brahms’s music is divinely beautiful. When Brahms was composing his Concert No.1, he was somewhat younger than me and managed to convey in his work the incredible flight to heavens and might of Olympic titans, very powerful and solemn. Apart from that I am very attracted to the complexity of his works. Brahms, like Schubert, is a composer of the ‘golden middle’ between the time of classicism and romanticism. Their creative work includes the established principles of the music of the past and at the same time includes the sprouts and prospects of the music of the future. That is why such works are the most complicated in terms of technique.
“Three main themes can be heard in all of Brahms’s works. The first is the romantic wind, the gust of feelings, which emerges in the first vibrato of string instruments; the second one is the heroic call from the Olympus, which is send by gods to Earth. And the third one is inability to escape from destiny, which is constantly stealing up and breathes in the back of our heads – the topic of the hopelessness of being.
“‘Modern’ in the meaning of actual, translated from Latin is valid, and there is no doubt that any music performed can be called modern, because it develops and influences the listeners at the present moment. Many problems and concepts that were topical in the 19th century, when Brahms was composing his music pieces, are not so presently. But the author put his emotions into music. And when a musician is today interpreting this music, he adds his emotions, so the contact with the feeling of the composer emerges, and this is what makes the work modern.
“I had heard much about the Ukrainian audience: I had been told that it is demanding. Therefore I didn’t expect that the reaction would be so rapturous: it was very pleasant for me to see that people rose to their feet in applause and called to me to play encore.”
It will be recalled that the next meeting with Roman Kofman and Symphony Orchestra of the National Philharmonic Society at the concert of the cycle “All Symphonies by Johannes Brahms” will be held on December 20, Symphony No. 3 in F major, as well as Concert No.1 for Cello with Orchestra by Dmitry Shostakovich will be performed, soloist: Artem Poludenny (cello).
