Gennady Nikolayevich Roshdestvensky

Gennady Roshdestvensky (left) and the Czech composer Lucas Matousek . Prague Spring 2007 , City House, Prague.

Gennady Nikolayevich Rozhdestvensky ( Russian Геннадий Николаевич Рождественский , English Gennady Rozhdestvensky , scientific. Transliteration Gennady Nikolaevich Roždestvenskij ; * 4. May 1931 in Moscow , Soviet Union ; † 16th June 2018 the same place) was a Soviet and Russian conductor .

Life

Gennady Roshdestvensky was the son of the conductor Nikolai Pavlovich Anossow and the singer Natalia Petrovna Roshdestvenskaya. He took his mother's maiden name to avoid the semblance of nepotism in building his own career.

Roschdestvensky first completed a classical music education at the Moscow Conservatory with the pianist Lev Oborin . His father taught him the basics of conducting an orchestra. In 1951 he made his debut as a conductor in the performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker in the Bolshoi Theater . Until the early 1960s he worked as an assistant at the Bolshoi Theater and conducted various ballets.

From 1961 to 1974 he directed the Radio Symphony Orchestra of the USSR . Roschdestwenski was the first conductor to present works by Carl Orff , Paul Hindemith , Béla Bartók and Maurice Ravel in the Soviet Union. He was also one of the few Soviet conductors who were allowed to leave the country during the Cold War and conducted the western premieres of Shostakovich's Symphonies Nos. 4 and 12 at the Edinburgh Festival in 1962. From 1964 to 1970 he was also Artistic Director of the Bolshoi. In the following years he took over the musical direction of the Moscow Chamber Opera. From 1974 to 1977 he was artistic director of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra , from 1978 to 1981 chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra London and from 1980 to 1982 chief conductor of the Vienna Symphony . He then took over the symphony orchestra of the Ministry of Culture of the USSR in this position until 1992 and again the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic from 1991 to 1995. In 1994 he became chairman of the Bolshoi Artistic Advisory Board.

In 2000 he was reappointed Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Theater. He put this post in 2001 after only one season down after sharp criticism for staging the Prokofiev - Opera The player had to suffer.

Gennady Roshdestvensky was one of the most important interpreters of Russian and contemporary Soviet music. He often toured extensively in Europe, Japan and the USA. The works dedicated to him include a. the 1st Symphony by Alfred Schnittke and the composition Voices ... are silent ... by Sofia Gubaidulina . He left behind recordings of almost 800 works, including all of the symphonies by Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius, Bruckner, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Glasunov, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.

Roshdestvensky was married to the pianist Viktorija Postnikowa .

Awards

• 1970: Lenin Prize
• 1976: People's Artist of the USSR
• 1990: hero of socialist work
• 1995: State Prize of the Russian Federation
• 2014: Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Web links

Commons : Gennady Nikolayevich Roshdestvensky  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Works by and about Gennadi Nikolajewitsch Roschdestwenski in the catalog of the German National Library
• Gennadi Rozhdestvensky at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Vivien Schweitzer: Gennady Rozhdestvensky, a Leading Russian Conductor, Dies at 87. In: The New York Times . June 17, 2018, accessed April 29, 2020 . 
2. ^ ^{A b} Günter Moseler:  Roždestvenskij, Gennadij Nikolaevič. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 14 (Riccati - Schönstein). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2005, ISBN 3-7618-1134-9  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Gennadi Rozhdestvensky. In: bolschoi.ru. Retrieved April 29, 2020 . 
4. ↑ David Nice: Gennady Rozhdestvensky obituary. In: The Guardian . June 17, 2018, accessed April 29, 2020 .