Concert for the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel's birth

On March 7, maestro Valery Gergiev, pianist Denis Matsuev and the Russian National Youth Symphony Orchestra will celebrate the 150th anniversary of one of the greatest composers of the 20th century, Maurice Ravel, by taking to the stage of the Tchaikovsky Hall on the master's birthday. The program put together by the musicians is truly a fireworks display of the most popular masterpieces of both Ravel himself and his equally great contemporaries, Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev.

The most important works of the first quarter of the 20th century will be performed – bright, expressive, sometimes revolutionary opuses that have entered the treasury of world art. Almost all of them (except for Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto) were intended for choreographic embodiment. Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe and Waltz, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring were created for Sergei Diaghilev's Parisian ballet company, and the famous Bolero was created for the dancer Ida Rubinstein. In all of these scores, rhythm and timbre dominate, and emotions run wild. For Valery Gergiev, the work of all three composers is one of the foundations of his repertoire.

Prokofiev's Second Concerto, written in the same year as The Rite of Spring, also became one of the most innovative works of its time (Prokofiev completed the final version in Paris). The renowned pianist Svyatoslav Richter, whose 110th birthday the music world also celebrates in March, considered this Prokofiev concerto – the most difficult in the entire piano repertoire – to be one of the “three main pillars of pianism.” Denis Matsuev is rightfully considered one of the best performers of this work.