Subscription Concert A Series

Subscription Concert No.1016 A Series

This concert is over. Date: Mon. 10. February 2025 19:00 (18:00)

Venue: Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Venue Info Seat

[50th Anniversary of death of Shostakovich]
Purchase Ticket（English）

Baby sitting Service

[PDF download]

Artists

Eliahu INBAL, Conductor
Grigory SHKARUPA, Bass*
Estonian National Male Choir, Male Chorus*

Profile

Eliahu INBAL (Conductor Laureate)

Eliahu Inbal was born in Jerusalem in 1936. He held numerous chief posts with orchestras such as Frankfurt Radio Symphony (hr-Sinfonieorchester), Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Teatro la Fenice di Venezia, and Czech Philharmonic. He was appointed Conductor Laureate of Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra in 2014. Many CDs of live performances by Inbal and TMSO are winning great acclaim. He was decorated by French and German Government, and by the cities of Frankfurt and Wien.

Grigory SHKARUPA (Bass)

Russian bass Grigory Shkarupa was born in St. Petersburg in 1989. After graduating from the Glinka Choral College in 2007, he went on to study at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory, both as a singer and a choral conductor.
He is a prize-winner at the 1st Elena Obraztsova International Competition for Young Singers in St. Petersburg, the Shalyapin International Competition in Yalta, the ‘Three Centuries of the Classical Romance’ International Competition in St. Petersburg, as well as the Sviridov Vocal Competition in Kursk.
Shkarupa debuted at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg at the age of 19. He sang the roles of the Prisoner in Verdi’s Nabucco, Patsyuk in Christmas Eve, Mityukha in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, Zuniga in Carmen, The Monk in Verdi’s Don Carlo, Soldier in Berlioz’s Les Troyens, and many others. He has performed with distinguished conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Mehta Valery Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov, Gianandrea Noseda, Mikhail Tatarnikov, Justus Frantz, and Mikhail Agrest. As a member of the Mariinsky Theatre ensemble, he has toured in Spain, Israel, Germany and Lithuania.
Shkarupa is a member of the Staatsoper Berlin since September of 2015, where he has appeared as Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte, Ferrando in Il Trovatore, Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Masetto in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Trufaldino in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, Biterolf in Tannhäuser.

photo:©Daniil Rabovsky

The Estonian National Male Choir (Male Choir)

The Estonian National Male Choir is one of the best-known Estonian music ensembles in the world. The choir’s repertoire spans from renaissance to contemporary. The Estonian National Male Choir was founded in 1944 by Estonian choral conductor and composer Gustav Ernesaks. Starting from the 2011 / 2012 season Estonian National Male Choir is led by chief conductor and artistic director Mikk Üleoja. Each season the choir gives about 50-60 concerts both in Estonia and abroad. Estonian National Male Choir frequently records for Estonian National Broadcasting and has collaborated with such labels as Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, Finlandia, Alba Records, GB Records, Virgin Classics, Aurora, Ondine, Toccata Classics and SOOND. In 2004 choir was awarded the Grammy award for the best choral performance, first for Estonia (Sibelius’ cantatas, conductor Paavo Järvi). Over its long history, the Estonian National Male Choir has given more than seven thousand concerts, in Estonia but also in locations as far afield as Northern America and Asia.

photo©Jaan Krivel

Program

Rachmaninoff: The Isle of the Dead, op.29

Program Notes
Shostakovich: Symphony No.13 in B-flat minor, op.113, “Babi Yar”*

Program Notes

Rachmaninoff: The Isle of the Dead, op.29

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Born on the estate of Oneg, near Semyonovo, April 1, 1873; died in Beverly Hills, California, March 28, 1943

　Rachmaninoffʼs predilection for dark colors, somber moods, and pathos found no greater manifestation than in his symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead. Inspiration for this remarkable score came from a painting of the same title by the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901). Böcklinʼs left five versions of the painting (1880-1886; a sixth was done in 1901 with his son Carlo). But Rachmaninoffʼs direct source was a black and white reproduction he saw in Paris in 1907. His imagination was seized by this grim, gloomy picture with its stark, brooding cliffs, ghostly cypress trees and the image of a black-draped rower steering a small boat across the water with a casket and a single mourner.
　The association with Greek mythology − Charon gliding across the black water of the river Styx − is too close to be ignored. Böcklin, who spent much of his life in Italy, presumably had a specific Mediterranean island in mind for his painting (perhaps Pondikonisi, which lies off the shores of Corfu; some authorities maintain it was Ponza, largest of the Pontine Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea), but, as biographer Patrick Piggott observes, “the suggestive power of Rachmaninoffʼs music carries the listener into regions of the imagination far beyond the range of the Swiss painterʼs art, and it must be emphasized that it was not so much the quality of Böcklinʼs painting that stimulated Rachmaninoff as its subject.” The score was composed in 1909 and first performed on May 1 of that year in Moscow with the composer conducting. In 1929 Rachmaninoff conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in a recording of the work.
　The baleful mood is established in the opening bars. A mantle of oppressive gloom hangs over the music. A restless, undulating motif with five beats to the bar (usually 2 + 3; sometimes 3 + 2) suggests the slow dip and pull of Charonʼs oars, or perhaps the gentle lapping of the waves. The pervasive motif slowly builds to a powerful climax. Solemn brass pronouncements punctuate the way. Despite the muted colors and grave mood, there is an awesome sense of impending doom. Suddenly the spirit takes flight: the lopsided 5/8 rhythm changes to a regular 3/4, the minor tonality yields to major, the mood becomes urgent and even passionate. Rachmaninoff referred to the long-breathed melody in E-flat major as the “life” theme, to which the dead soul recalls the pleasures of life on earth. Intimations of the “Dies irae” motif (the Latin chant for the dead in the Catholic liturgy) mingle with the “life” theme. The latter is finally stamped out; dark mutterings of the “Dies irae” float about; the unnerving, rocking motif in 5/8 rhythm returns; the colors darken; Charon continues on his way in Stygian gloom as the music dies away into inaudibility.

Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.
　

Shostakovich: Symphony No.13 in B-flat minor, op.113, “Babi Yar”

Ⅰ Babi Yar: Adagio
Ⅱ Humor: Allegretto
Ⅲ At the store: Adagio
Ⅳ Terror: Largo
Ⅴ A Career: Allegretto

Dmitri Shostakovich: Born in St. Petersburg, September 25, 1906; died in Moscow, August 9, 1975

　In his Thirteenth Symphony, Shostakovich again turned to vocal resources, which he had not used in this genre since the Third of 1929. It was composed in the early 1960s, during one of the cultural thaws that occasionally occurred in the Soviet Union. But even Khrushchevʼs comparatively balmy artistic climate could not countenance the ideological thrust of the poems Shostakovich set by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. This applied particularly to the poem “Babi Yar,” the text for the first movement and the one by which the entire symphony is known. “Babi Yar” concerns the sensitive issue of oppressed Jewry in Russia as seen through the memory of the Nazi atrocity that occurred outside Kiev (Kyiv) in September, 1941. As a reprisal for the deaths of several hundred Germans stationed in Kiev (Kyiv), over one hundred thousand Ukrainians, mostly Jews, were rounded up and shot at the edge of the deep ravine known as Babi Yar.
　Kirill Kondrashin conducted the Moscow Philharmonic in the world premiere, which took place at the Moscow Conservatory on December 18, 1962. Khrushchev had advised Shostakovich to cancel the performance, but emboldened by the cultural thaw and by his own defiant attitude, the composer ignored the Premier. Either in spite of or because of this attempt to halt the performance, it was wildly successful, with lengthy ovations and cries of “Bravo Shostakovich! Bravo Yevtushenko!” But Pravda carried no review, only a short notice of the event. Before further performances were allowed, Yevtushenko was forced to alter some lines, indicating that not only Jews were massacred at Babi Yar, and that Russians could take pride in their struggle against the Nazis. (Shostakovichʼs music was not affected.)
　The hour-long symphony is in five movements, the final three played without breaks. Each movement bears the title of one of Yevtushenkoʼs poems. They do not constitute a cycle in the traditional sense, though the common themes of repression and protest imbue all of them. A strong sense of drama, intensity and evocative atmosphere are also found throughout the entire symphony. The texts, sung by a bass soloist and menʼs chorus, form a crucial element of the score − vital carriers of information − and Shostakovich has taken care to make every word clearly audible. Malcolm MacDonald, in his essay “Words and Music in Late Shostakovich,” has written: “Shostakovichʼs word-setting, both here and later, rejects mere lyrical appeal: it is austere, usually syllabic, responding to the natural speech-inflections with repeated notes or conjunct motion − at most slightly widening its range and broadening into cantabile phrases for emotional heightening.” The orchestral writing is, aside from some terrifying climaxes, for the most part spare, allowing for intelligibility of the texts. The combined forces of bass soloist, chorus and orchestra are employed in all five movements; hence, none is purely instrumental, leading one to ponder if perhaps “cantata” might be the better description for the work.
　The symphony opens with a dirge-like motif in the darkest instruments of the orchestra, over which muted horns and trumpets play an anguish-laden motif punctuated by the sound of a chime, whose solemn tolling will occur some forty times in the course of the first movement alone, and throughout the symphony as a recurring reminder of death. With this grim, stark mood vividly evoked, the chorus remarks in sepulchral tones that no monument stands at Babi Yar; only the forbidding precipice. (In 1976 a monument was built.) To sardonic, march-like music the bass soloist identifies himself with the mistreated Jews throughout history.
　The heaviness of the powerful first movement is barely relieved by the next, entitled “Humor.” Here is nothing to laugh about; “black humor” might be the more appropriate title. The mood is still weighty, a weight brought on by reminders of repression, oppression and suppression. Yevtushenko portrays “Humor” as a resilient and indestructible personification, incapable of being seized, commanded, oppressed, bought or killed.
　The third movement (“At the Store”) plunges again into some of the bleakest, blackest music Shostakovich ever wrote. The text pays tribute to the stolid, noble, long-suffering Russian women who endure all. Most poignant is the portrayal of these frugal people silently standing in line at the shops in the cold, only to be cheated by the clerk.
　The music dies away into nothingness as the next movement (“Terror”) creeps in. Slowly, ominously, like some terrible unseen presence, the solo tuba conveys the breathless fear of the knock on the door, a fear that all too often became reality in Stalinist Russia.
　The final movement (“A Career”) again follows without pause, beginning with a gentle, consolatory flute duet that comes like a breath of fresh air after the suffocating stress of the fourth movement. A playful, almost folksy bassoon solo occurs later, repeated several times throughout the movement as an optimistic reminder that the careers of such intrepid, pioneering men as Galileo, Pasteur, Newton, and Tolstoy give cause for continuing struggle and hope in this world of ruthless, repressive governments.

Robert Markow's musical career began as a horn player in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He now writes program notes for orchestras and concert organizations in the USA, Canada, and several countries in Asia. As a journalist he covers the music scenes across North America, Europe, and Asian countries, especially Japan. At Montreal's McGill University he lectured on music for over 25 years.
　

Purchase Ticket

Performers and programs are subject to change, or performances may be cancelled.
No refunds except for cancelled performances.

Purchase Ticket（English）

Movies

Members: end of sale
Single ticket: end of sale

Purchase Ticket (Japanese)
Member tickets Including this concert

Performers and programs are subject to change, or performances may be cancelled.
No refunds except for cancelled performances.
Please contact us for unsold seat situation.
TMSO Guide 0570-056-057 Hours: 10-18 MON-FRI Closed on SAT, SUN and NATIONAL HOLIDAYS

This number cannot be reached by international calls, some IP phones and prepaid mobile phones.

Ticket Price

	S	A	B	C	Ex
General	¥8,500	¥7,500	¥6,500	¥5,500	¥3,800
Silver	¥6,800	¥6,000	¥5,200	¥4,400	-
U-25	¥4,250	¥3,750	¥3,250	¥2,750	-

Baby sitting Service

Event Babysitting Mother's (Mon - Fri, 10:00am - 12:00pm, 1:00pm - 5:00pm) tel: 0120-788-222
Mother's website http://www.mothers-inc.co.jp/

Call for appointment by one week before the concert.

for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan
Japan Arts Council
The Mitsubishi UFJ Trust Foundation for the Arts
Rohm Music Foundation

Subscription Concert No.1016 A Series

Artists

Eliahu INBAL (Conductor Laureate)

Grigory SHKARUPA (Bass)

The Estonian National Male Choir (Male Choir)

Program

Movies

Ticket Price

Baby sitting Service

Recommended