Concert programme — Mussorgsky

8 Russian miniatures arranged for viola and piano

Dmitry Kabalevsky (1904–87)

Improvisation Op.21 No.1 (1934)

arranged by Lawrence Power

Modest Mussorgsky (1835-1881)

Une Larme (1880)

Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-75)

Barrel Organ Waltz from The Gadfly (1956)

arranged by Vadim Borisovsky

Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840–93)

April from The Seasons (1876)

arranged by Vadim Borisovsky

Aveu Passioné (1892)

arranged by Vadim Borisovsky

Modest Mussorgsky

Gopak from Sorochyntsi Fair (1874–80)

arranged by Vadim Borisovsky

Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky

October from The Seasons

arranged by Vadim Borisovsky

Dmitri Shostakovich

People's Holiday from the Gadfly (1956)

arranged by Vadim    Borisovsky

What, one sometimes wonders, would violists do without Vadim Borisovsky? Professor of viola at the Moscow Conservatoire and for 40 years violist of the Beethoven Quartet, he still had the time to pursue his mission of enlarging the repertoire of his instrument like no one else ever did, completing more than 250 arrangements or editions for viola (or viola d’amore ) between 1928 and his death in 1972. He seems to have missed out, however, with Kabalevsky’s Improvisation, which has at least given Lawrence Power the chance to make his own arrangement and to demonstrate that this spectacular little piece (originally written for the film Night in St. Petersburg) is just as effective on on viola as violin.

Apart from Mussorgsky’s Une Larme, a strangely sullen piano piece with a melancholy line well suited to the viola, all the other arrangements are the work of Borisovsky. Shostakovich’s film score The Gadfly has been a rich source of material for arrangers, not least the irresistible Barrel-Organ Waltz with its ill-tuned outer sections and its pleasing legato melody in the middle. There is another waltz, thinly disguised in 6/8 time, in April (subtitled The Snowdrop) from Tchaikovsky’s piano suite The Seasons, which usefully offsets Aveu passioné, itself a piano arrangement of an intimate moment from The Voyevoda.    The Gopak from Mussorgsky’s Sorochintsy Fair, an arrangers’ favourite, has the rhythmic verve to survive just about any change of instrumentation, while the regretful Autumn Song representing October in Tchaikovsky’s Seasons might almost have been conceived for viola in the first place. Another piece from Shostakovich’s Gadfly music, People’s Holiday seems to be well placed in the film’s Italian setting – it is also known as Tarantella or Neapolitan Dance – but it is not incongruous either in the specifically Soviet celebration represented b y Shostakovich’s Festival Overture. It is an an exhilarating experience wherever, or however, it is set.