Mikhail Pletnev’s Utopia
New Project of the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra
Musical Life Magazine ~ muzlifemagazine.ru
Among lakes, fields, and mountains, in the small Swiss town of Rolle, the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra undergoes its concert baptism. At the conductor's podium is Kent Nagano, at the piano – Mikhail Pletnev, and the program features, of course, Rachmaninoff.
The orchestra is named after Rachmaninoff, although, in essence, its main musical core is Mikhail Vasilyevich Pletnev: it's his name and his musical presence that are the main attractions for the vast international team of the project orchestra. A year ago in Bratislava, the first trial step was taken in this direction – together with an orchestra assembled from musicians of different countries, Pletnev recorded Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake" and Shchedrin's "Carmen Suite". It was then that the name of Rachmaninoff – one of the maestro's most significant composers – was chosen for the new ensemble.
The project of an international symphony orchestra (where musicians from Slovakia, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, etc., sit together on one stage) is an undoubtedly utopian endeavor in its essence. It's no coincidence that another similar orchestra immediately comes to mind, also called "Utopia". The idea of the Rachmaninoff orchestra seems even more utopian, given that this project was initiated in May 2022, during much more complex international times. Since then, our planet has only entered an even greater zone of turbulence – it seems like the whole world is on fire, yet on stage, the multilingual, multinational community of musicians (established soloists and concertmasters of famous orchestras, former colleagues, recent students) are still able to agree on how to play Rachmaninoff.
The main manager and initiator of the Rachmaninoff International Orchestra is Sergey Markov. His connection with Mikhail Pletnev (who has not performed concerts in Russia since 2022) is not only based on a belief in a successful future but also on the experience of successful past collaboration – from 1994 to 2005, Markov held the position of director and president of the Russian National Orchestra. He explains the idea of creating the RIO quite simply: "Pletnev is without an orchestra, and the orchestra is without Pletnev – and this is not right. He needs such a musical instrument to express his ideas, and his musical ideas are needed by many people." It's hard to disagree with him in this. The project is financed through international charitable donations (the RNO also started similarly). It is a fundamentally independent project.
Compared to the Bratislava recording, the composition of the orchestra has noticeably changed. Some were not permitted to travel. According to the organizers' plan, in the future, they would like to make about fifty percent of the ensemble (the core of the orchestra) permanent, while the rest will vary depending on the composition of the works and the touring schedule. Thus, in the utopian-optimistic vision of the management, such a layout will allow combining artistic integrity and a general understanding of the spirit and style with a constant component of renewal. “There is no shortage in the world of beautiful, professional, well-coordinated, disciplined orchestras, and that is wonderful. The story of this orchestra is a bit different: when before your eyes, order is created from chaos, harmony from something incomprehensible. And there is its own drama in this,” says Markov This is an attempt to find artistic balance amidst widespread demarcation
Primarily, of course, Pletnev is interested in conducting. But, since this is the jubilee year of Rachmaninoff, whose name the orchestra bears, a large-scale and ambitious program was chosen for the two debut concerts – all of Rachmaninoff's piano concertos and the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. As a bonus, several compositions by Gordon Getty, whose works the Russian National Orchestra under Pletnev has included in its programs more than once. The American composer himself came to the small Swiss town of Rolle to assess the performance of his music by the new orchestra: an overture and two vocal numbers from his opera Plump Jack were performed, with soloists baritone Lester Lynch and soprano Alexandra Armantrading.
Why Rolle in this story? First of all, of course, it's the connection with Switzerland – both Pletnev, who has lived here for many years, and Rachmaninoff, for whom this country became a European oasis before his final departure to the USA. For the debut concerts of the new, as yet unknown Rachmaninoff International Orchestra, a similarly reliable and safe oasis became the concert hall of the local elite school Le Rosey. Located in a huge luxurious park, the cultural center Paul & Henri Carnal Hall, reminiscent of a space object that landed in the Swiss countryside, provides its stage not only to students of the school but also to such stars as Maxim Vengerov, Renaud Capuçon, Avishai Cohen, Hélène Grimaud, Paul Meyer, etc.
The two concerts of the RIO were preceded by a week of intensive rehearsals. Actually, the very 'drama' occurring on stage arises from the heightened auditory attention of the musicians to each other: not having a long experience of playing together, the orchestra members are forced to listen especially carefully to their stage neighbors. The main vector in the overall musical thinking of the orchestra is set by the soloist, who in a friendly tandem with Kent Nagano (Pletnev's longtime friend and loyal stage partner) shows at the piano, refines the strokes, maneuvers from rigid rhythmic focus to detached improvisation. A voluntary session of collective musical hypnosis. Despite the fact that maestro Nagano obviously concedes the palm of musical conception to Pletnev in the concertos (perhaps the fact of a tense schedule played a role – between rehearsals he managed to conduct the premiere of 'Salome' in Hamburg), his work with the orchestra is professionally noteworthy: full, colorful sound, refined orchestral solos (here, of course, one can only rejoice at the possibilities of the international composition), strong, elaborated climaxes, clear polyphonic passages.
On the first evening, Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and the Third Piano Concerto were performed. Both pieces shared a somewhat otherworldly detachment of the soloist: Pletnev began the Rhapsody with almost a jazz-like phlegmatism, slowly unraveling the ball of the variation cycle – each orchestral climax he lowered into the calm waters, like Lake Geneva, of his solo. The first part of the Third Concerto initially showed a clearly perceptible emotional counterpoint between the conductor and the soloist – the active and swift Nagano and the extremely restrained Pletnev. And unexpectedly, the pianist's intense gaze into the audience during the famous main part creates a strong illusion of an overheard internal monologue. The boundless musical sea of the Third Concerto fluctuates on the fine pulsation of excitement, peace, inner determination, and a deafening finale.
The three piano concertos performed on the second evening presented a completely different emotional image and completely different pianism. The First and Fourth concertos in the first part took the listener from the detached manner of the previous day into a world of actively lived time: the youthful drive and lively turmoil of the First Concerto were replaced by no less active determination of the Fourth, especially virtuosically embodied in the macabre finale.
And finally, the Second Piano Concerto, concluding this two-day cycle, can be considered among the best (if one is shy to use words like 'benchmark') performances of the finest pages of Rachmaninoff's music, without a hint of excessive sentimentality and pathos: the natural striving of the first part, almost Mahlerian sound of the strings in the slow Adagio, the polyphonic race, and the velvety boundlessness of the finale.
And in the end, after thunderous applause, one of Mikhail Vasilyevich's signature encores – Balakirev's piano arrangement of Glinka's 'The Lark'. Pletnev magically maintains the feeling of an impromptu performance on the motif of a song familiar from childhood, whose words automatically come to mind: 'Between heaven and earth'. There's no better way to describe Pletnev's concerts.
