Valery Gergiev conducts 49 times in 29 days
mainHere’s his schedule for the Moscow Easter Festival. Never mind the music, check the diary. He’s competing again for Stalin’s Hero of Soviet Labour medal.
“Moscow Easter Festival 2015” – schedule of Mariinsky theatre orchestra and Valery Gergiev
11 april — Smolensk;
12 april — Vladimir (afternoon), Moscow (evening);
13 april — Moscow (two concerts);
14 april — Rybinsk (afternoon), Yaroslavl’ (evening);
15 april — Nizhny Novgorod (два концерта);
16 april — Vonkinsk (birthplace of Tchaikovsky (afternoon), Izhevsk (evening);
17 april — Perm’ (two concerts);
18 april — Ekaterinburg (two concerts);
19 april — Tyumen’ (two concerts);
20 april — Omsk (two concerts);
21 april — Tomsk (two concerts);
22 april — Kemerovo (two concerts);
23 april — Barnaul;
24 april — Astana (capital of Kazakhstan);
25 april — Magnitogorsk;
26 april — Orenburg (two concerts);
27 april — Penza (two concerts);
28 april — Samara (two concerts);
29 april — Kazan’;
30 april — Moscow (two concerts);
1 may — Saint-Petersburg;
2 may — Moscow;
3 may — Ul’yanovsk;
4 may — Volgograd;
5 may — Voronezh (two concerts);
6 may — Belgorod (afternoon), Kursk (evening);
7 may — Moscow (afternoon), Klin (summer residence of Tchaikovsky) (evening);
8 may — Moscow (two concerts);
9 may — Moscow (two concerts).
http://en.easterfestival.ru/
Surprising he has time to think about Putin and his policies — how does he ever get his head out of a score except to raise his baton?
His kind of complete agreement and support does not require any thinking.
Putin-Geschnetzeltes.
For every beat he gives, imagine how many notes the musicians have to play.
BRAVI TO THE MUSICIANS WHO ENDURE SUCH PHYSICAL MARATHONS!
Utterly stupid. How can they even consider that this is a valid schedule for having something artistically credible to impart?
Where is the problem? Minus the touring logistics, working like this is standard for big European opera orchestras like the Marinskij, the Vienna State opera, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Dresden Staatskapelle etc.
They will rotate players, only Gergiev will do all of it apparently. And the job of the conductor is not so difficult, if you play a well known repertoire together for the umpteenth time.
Also you miss the whole point of this tour. It is to bring classical music to places that do not see high class performers too often. The alternative would be no concerts there at all, and I doubt that is an artistically better solution…
Many great conductors have been known for their enviable reserves of energy.
After some time, conducting geniusses acquire a certain state of holiness which includes the gift of multiple presence (like Santa Claus).
I don’t really see the problem here. As listeners we have to judge a conductor by his results not his lifestyle and if we don’t like them we don’t go to his concerts or buy his recordings. There are all too few top-class conductors around now and I for one am not going to “cracher dans la soupe” – excuse my French.
Many of my Moscow friends attended the first Moscow concert of the festival on Sunday and report it to have been remarkably good, so, this barnstorming practice may seemingly yield good results. At times.
Poor comment,lame joke,Mr.Lebrecht!
I’ve seen Gergiev a couple times on his Easter Festival marathon (in Moscow, Yerevan, and Astana). It seems a brutal schedule and you wonder why he doesn’t have a guest conductor for some of the programs. But I’ve never been disappointed by a Gergiev/Maryinsky concert; some of them have been truly outstanding. And Gergiev gives good value – some of the shows have gone three hours or longer, with an unexpected concerto thrown into the mix.
I wouldn’t be surprised, given the Maryinsky Orchestra has about 300 players, if they’re not rotating people in and out.