The album’s first soundtrack presents a 23 second ovation. The charity concert by the NMAU students’ orchestra conducted by Roman Kofman at the Beethoven Festival in Bonn in fact enjoyed great success with the public. Evidence to this are headlines in the German press: “Delight with the Brilliant Symphony No. 9 (Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger), “Harmony Cures” (Bonner Rundschau), or “Young, Passionate, and Impressive” (General-Anzeiger, Bonn). 60,000 marks were raised, which were later used to treat child cancer patients in Kyiv hospitals. The Kyiv orchestra achievements looked even more impressive against the background of the Beethovenfest program.
A prelude to the festival was a concert by Martha Argerich and Volodymyr Ashkenazi. In addition to classical music performed by best world groups, the program included unexpected thematic sections like Beethoven and Jazz (Robert Lehrbaumer, clavier), Blues over Beethoven (blues variations over Beethoven’s Sonate Pathetique, Mondscheinsonate, and Fur Elise by Marcus Schinkel Trio), From Baroque to Rock: Beethoven, Bach, the Beatles, and Bayerisch (wind ensemble of the Munich Philharmonic). Some works by modern authors were also included in the program: Max Bruch’s Odysseus chamber opera, Iannis Xenakis, and Gyorgy Ligeti. The festival’s concluding concert along with Beethoven’s Concert for Cello featured Charles Ives’s Symphony No. 4 .
Before inviting the Ukrainian orchestra, Deutsche Welle held a contest among Ukrainian composers with Serhiy Piliutkov’s Cantus supra librum [Chant Over a Book] winning first place. This composition is represented in the second soundtrack of the new album. The composer recalls that, learning about his victory in the DW contest, he panicked, because such events can happen only once in a lifetime. Long before the Bonn concert foreign journalists tried to interview the young composer on his new work. According to him, Cantus supra librum is musical commentary to the theme by sixteenth century Italian composer-polyphonist Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrini. In different parts of the score one instrument or another becomes for some time a kind of musical hero, traveling and getting into various situations. Various ensembles appear in the orchestra with sound space beginning to literally breath. In the literature that comes with the CD, the composer speaks in detail on the composition idea of his work: “Intuitive reaction and free form make it possible to establish connections with the principles of medieval improvisation, when the same theme is modified by different singers, introducing into it their own accents and colors. My way of approaching these principles is based upon group theory in mathematics.” I would also add that this music is interesting in terms of art. The fact that in the album it neighbors with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 (tracks 2 and 3 of the Disc 1 and the whole Disc 2) is only to its benefit.
At the Beethoven Festival the Kyiv students’ ensemble had to play after Rudolf Barsaj, Ivan Fischer, and Christoph Poppen orchestras. Before leaving for the festival, Roman Kofman held an open rehearsal where Symphony No. 9 was performed without vocal and choir parts. In Bonn before the concert one more general rehearsal was held. It is difficult to find words to express adequately the intellectual and emotional tension the musicians felt on the eve of the performance. It seems that the composition’s interpretation changed rather quickly. Thus, at the Kyiv open rehearsal the symphony sounded very Slavic. Its first part reminded one of Dvorak and Tchaikovsky, the scherzo aroused associations with fantastic scenes from Glinka’s Ruslan and Liudmila. However, after the orchestra’s performance at the festival German critics wrote: “Guests from Kyiv kept under control a true classic sound, in no way forcing it, and in Beethoven music made no allusions to the Tchaikovsky colors.” The audio version of the performance (with the participation of Janet Fairlie, Zoryana Kushpier, Hans Jorg Mammel, and Friedemann Rohlig as soloists and also the Bonn Opera Choir and Bonn Philharmonic Choir) confirms the words of foreign critics, and Roman Kofman’s version of Beethoven’s great symphony will without doubt become a rarity among all Beethoven admirers.
Deputy Director of the Deutsche Welle German Service Reinhard Hartstein explained his initiative, in part, regarding the Ukrainian musicians: “We would like to initiate a dialogue between different interpretations of Beethoven’s works in various parts of the world.” After the Kyivans’ successful performance the organizers of the Beethoven festival plan to make inviting young ensembles a tradition.
