War Songs Tour

Artist News

This feature article was written for the Hvorostovsky/Orbelian Songs of the War Years concerts commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War II. The commemorative concerts took place in May/June 2005 at Moscow's Kremlin Palace and in seven "Hero Cities" throughout Russia. These Hero Cities' — Tula, Smolensk, Volgograd (Stalingrad), Krasnoyarsk, Novosibirsk, Ekaterinburg and St. Petersburg (Leningrad) — figured prominently in the pivotal battles and heroic victories of World War II.

SONGS OF THE WAR YEARS

I

In the life of any human being there is an event dividing his or her existence into "Before" and "After." Such events occur in the history of a country as well. The Second World War (known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War) of 1941-45 divided the life and memory of several generations into two periods: before and after the War. And between "Before" and "After" were four terrible and heroic years: the red of blood, the din of screams and death-rattles — illuminated by missile explosions and crowned with the tear-washed exclamation: "Victory!"

Memory compresses these four years into a single fiery line. Memory permanently returns us to it — to the fiery line that represents the unity of our past and future; that is the source of our courage, and of our hope to hold out and to emerge victorious in a critical situation. And, too, Memory takes us back to our relatives and fellow countrymen, who "were knocked breathless in the mortal snowstorm." Memory reawakens our grief over their losses and our immense gratitude for their heroism.

And I’m again with them
at this fiery line,
near an unknown village
on a nameless hill.

When Dmitri Hvorostovsky performs this song, we stand next to him at that fiery line, since it is hardly possible to remain indifferent to the summons of Memory, powerfully emanating from the "Songs of the War Years." The songs of the war years form the basis of the new concert program by People's Artist of Russia, Laureate of the State Prize of Russia, Dmitri Hvorostovsky; and Honored Artist of Russia, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the State Academic Chamber Orchestra of Russia, Constantine Orbelian.

II

This program has a history of its own that might never have happened, precisely because of the fiery line of war that separated the program’s creators at the time of their birth. Krasnoyarsk and San Francisco are ten thousand kilometers and fifteen time zones apart. Two boys — the future conductor and the future singer — were born in these cities within an interval of six years. At the time of their birth, the 20th century was already past its equator. The confrontation of two hostile political systems was growing more and more implacable. The circumstances seemed highly inauspicious for the meeting of these two talents. But Divine intent decided otherwise; and the more improbable the meeting, the more brilliant was its result. True, this took many years. Both talents had to ripen. Each of the two had to find his way in the realm of world culture. And, finally, their paths crossed at just the right moment and in the right place.

When in 1962 in Krasnoyarsk the newborn boy named Dmitri let out his first cry, no one thought that he would become a famous singer, acclaimed in the capitals and countless other cities all over the world. It is not unlikely, however, that his father, who had a beautiful voice, had some presentiments. The Hvorostovsky family’s collection of recordings by great singers — Tito Gobbi, Maria Callas, Feodor Chaliapin, and many others — was an unusually rich one for those times. It seems that the father placed before the son the beacons for his future career.

How many steps make up the staircase leading to success? There is the visible path, leading from the pedagogical college, through the Institute of Arts, to the stage of the Krasnoyarsk State Theatre of Opera and Ballet. After joining the company, he won the first prize at the All-Union vocal competition, then the Grand Prix at the international singers' competition in Toulouse and, finally, the "Singer of the World" award in Cardiff, Great Britain. There, Hvorostovsky was titled "Best Voice."

There is the invisible path as well: labor, doubts, an endless quest for perfection, fatigue, and labor again and again. And then, like a stroke of lightning: It worked! It has happened!

Did young Constantine Orbelian think about this when he, as an eleven-year-old boy from a family of Russian-Armenian origin, born in 1956 in the USA, was making his debut as a pianist with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra? After graduating from the Juilliard School in New York, he gave more than 750 concerts as a piano soloist with such top-flight orchestras as the Boston Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Scottish National Orchestra, the State Orchestra of the USSR, the St. Petersburg Symphony, the Moscow Virtuosi chamber orchestra, and many more. His recording of the Khachaturian Piano Concerto was recognized as "recording of the year" in Great Britain. Then in 1991 Constantine Orbelian became the first foreigner to head a State Orchesra in Russia, becoming Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra (the State Chamber Orchestra of Russia), and some years later was the first foreigner to receive the title of Honored Artist of Russia.

The Orchestra under Maestro Orbelian was acclaimed in the most prestigious halls of France, Italy, Germany, Canada, Japan, and other countries. In 2001 he was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, bestowed by the US Government upon prominent immigrants and their offspring.

During the past few years the well-known American label Delos has issued some 30 CDs with the Orchestra under Constantine Orbelian, performing classical and modern music, and including several discs with operatic arias sung by the best voices in the world. According to the journal Opera News, any singer's dream is to appear with such a conductor as Orbelian. It worked! It has happened!

But our main event was yet to come. In the Year 2000, Constantine Orbelian and Dmitri Hvorostovsky met to record a CD of Neapolitan songs. And so their paths crossed.

III

How do collaborative projects come about? They may be based on mutual sympathy or on common interests. Or they may be based on mutual awareness of an important mission: to reveal emotions and ideas that are concealed in the depths of historical memory, waiting for an appropriate moment to come to light.

In actuality, things began rather casually. Having finished the recording of Neapolitan songs, both men sat relaxed, trying to recover from the stress of sessions just completed. They were not yet thinking about the future. They simply conversed, joked, and sat silent. And then Constantine Orbelian suddenly uttered: "Songs of the war years." The phrase sounded like a proposal or program. After twenty-four hours of meditation and phone exchanges with his collaborator, Dmitri Hvorostovsky committed to paper a list of 30 songs.

By that time both men had recognized the full significance of their Project. During the War, one of the signallers' principal tasks was to lay a wire to enable connection between the command post and the attacking units. The wire had to be extended through swamps and minefields, under enemy fire. The signallers knew that in some situations the connection must be provided at any price.

The project "Songs of the War Years" is a connection as well. A connection extending through generations, through the decades that have elapsed since the victory. A memory connection that must remain unbroken.

Both Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Constantine Orbelian were aware that, while realizing their intention, they had to extend this connection through a virtual minefield. On the one hand, they had to avoid the temptations of pop-culture; while on the other hand they had to be careful to steer clear of any stilted bathos. Establishing a connection from heart to heart required a lot of selfless spiritual labor.

IV

That longest day of the year,
with its serene cloudless weather,
brought the disaster upon all of us,
the disaster that lasted four years…

These lines by Russia's most important wartime poet, Konstantin Simonov, whose poems such as "Wait for Me" helped to give hope to a devastated country, were about the beginning of the war. Though the disaster was universal, every family had a history of its own. Though Dmitri Hvorostovsky's grandfather had a "white chit" exempting him from service, he did his best to persuade the military enlistment officers to send him to the battlefront. Finally, he was enlisted in a Siberian unit, arrived with it in Moscow and found himself at the front line. His first battle turned out to be his last. His name was entered in the register of those who blocked the enemy's way to the capital with their bodies.

Some time later, Dmitri’s grandmother married a military officer who had participated in many wartime actions. He brought with him his decorations, the creak of his leather belts and the unique spirit of victory. He was a messenger "from over there," as it were. He had experienced the crossfire of the artillery, the aviation raids, and the hand-to-hand fights in entrenchments. And he was aware of the front-line brotherhood, which embraced both the survivors and the dead. The whole family gathered around the table; they sang wartime songs, and little Dmitri wondered why the adults shed tears while singing.

The history of Constantine Orbelian was quite different. His grandfather fell victim to Stalin's repressions and was shot at the Lubyanka Prison in 1938 as an "enemy of the people." His grandmother was thrown into the Gulag without knowing anything about the fate of her husband or her children. One of her sons, the father of the future musician, was drafted into the army, sent to the front line, participated in the critical battles in Byelorussia, and ended up in German captivity. At the first opportunity he escaped, fought two more years, and again was captured and sent to a concentration camp in German territory. He survived through a miracle. When the Allies' troops liberated the camp, he found himself in the American zone.

And once again the young man's destiny was decided by chance. The former prisoner, liberated by the Allies, met his beloved, Vera Yoznesenskaya, who had been brought from Ukraine to Germany to do forced labor. The young couple left for America, settling first in New York, then in San Francisco. But even there, far from their motherland, they gathered every year on Victory Day at the family table and sang the same songs that were heard at the Hvorostovskys' home, as well as in the homes of millions of fellow countrymen who remained on the other side of the iron curtain.

Constantine Orbelian would later confess that he perceived these songs as a form of spiritual chant, rather than as works belonging to the popular genre. Such was the impact of their words, of their music and, above all, of their character and atmosphere, reflecting the drama of a people who had emerged victorious at the terrible cost of countless lives.

In one of his interviews Dmitri Hvorostovsky, following his fellow Project creator, pondered the same subject. He said that the songs of the war years had long ago become for him a part of classical heritage, of the "gold fund" of human culture. Performing them, not only does he pay homage to his dead grandfather and to all those who did not return from the battlefronts of the Great Patriotic War; but also he takes off his hat to the greatest Russian opera singers who included these songs — the songs of courage, of pain, and of the highest spiritual power — in their repertoire.

V

The members of the Philharmonia of Russia and the Style of Five share the Project creators' thoughts and emotions. That is why these truly great — though sometimes rather unsophisticated — works sound so moving. They were kept in the hearts of our grandfathers, our mothers and fathers; and we will keep them in our hearts as well. Thus they will remain alive forever.

Mikhail Matusovsky’s famous song "On a Nameless Hill" has two additional stanzas that were not included in the canonical text. Nowadays, these lines sound especially topical:

Let your heroism be remembered forever,
and let be remembered forever all those,
who perished near an unknown village
on a nameless hill.

Boris Shapiro-Tulin
Translated by Levon Hakopian