Not every Kapellmeister from Russia who has become chief conductor in Munich has to be grateful to Vladimir Putin and also his friend. Like Valery Gergiev, head of the Munich Philharmonic, who by his closeness to the Russian President is now in conflict. We are talking about Vladimir Jurowski, the General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera, born in Moscow in 1972. The son of a conductor has lived in Berlin since his youth and, in addition to his new job in Munich, remains director of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra. For his concert in the Berlin Philharmonic, Jurowski has now decided to change the program with an explanation – the focus is on the Ukrainian national anthem.
“I didn’t think it was possible for the Russian Federation to start military aggression against Ukraine,” Jurowski comments. He was “deeply indignant about this action, but also extremely sad because I am connected to both countries through my family history”.
The Berlin audience seems anxious when the Ukrainian anthem is played
Jurowski, visibly touched, conducted a Russian program. At the beginning – instead of Tchaikovsky’s Slavic March – the triumphant, triumphant Ukraine anthem (“Glory and freedom have not yet died in Ukraine”) to a melody by Michailo Werbizki, who is hardly known in this country. Then the Symphonic Overture No. 1 in D major by the same composer, neatly structured, with a cheerful Rossini-like character. The melodic branching Cello Concerto in D minor by the Russian Anton Rubinstein (soloist: Alban Gerhardt) confirmed romantic listening patterns, the Concerto piccolo for cello and orchestra, called “History of Russia in 4 Hymns”, by the composer Dmitri Smirnov, who died in 2020, sounded like new territory. Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony brought the final surge of emotion.
But who was the composer of the Ukrainian anthem? Michailo Werbizki (1815-1870), a Greek Orthodox priest and musician, is the creator of choral and instrumental music, operettas, even variety shows, he composed the melody to the poem by Pavlo Chubinsky written by Pavlo Chubinsky in 1863 “The Ukraine is not dead yet “. An orchestral version of it was created at the time, which is now the national anthem of Ukraine. The audience in the Berlin Philharmonie heard them standing, with trepidation.
Like Leonard Bernstein in the past, Vladimir Jurowski is one of the few conductors who can afford to pick up a microphone on the podium in order to make short, concentrated and casual comments about the music and its background – both here to the “unusual” Slavic March in B flat minor by Tchaikovsky, propaganda music for the war between the Serbs and the Turks in 1876, as well as to the bizarre number of Russian anthems that were changed depending on national politics and mood. Despite Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine, Jurowski’s concert in Berlin was a single plea for the great musical nation of Russia, its past and present.