During the inaugural “Svetlanov – Universe!” Festival in November of 2018, the Moscow Conservatory honored the legendary conductor-composer on what would have been his 90th birthday, infusing the city of Moscow with a burst of 13 exciting concerts over the course of just one weekend! The seventh concert’s, entitled “The Circles of Memory”, centers around the world premiere of René Koering’s eponymous work for violin, cello, and orchestra.
The young Finnish maestro Kalle Kuusava opens the concert at the head of the Ural Youth Orchestra: together they perform Elgar’s Prelude from The Dream of Gerontius, which tells the tale of an old man whose soul is guided by a guardian angel toward the final judgement. The captivating work mixes the English choral tradition with Wagnerian influences in a nonetheless typical Elgarian orchestration. Kuusava and his young musicians are then joined on stage for Koering’s new work, which honors the Greek goddess of memory Mnemosyne and is dedicated to Svetlanov himself. The program culminates in Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini, a piece inspired by the moment in Dante’s Divine Comedy when the heroine falls in love with the brother of her husband...
