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'Prince Igor' on tour at La Scala, Milan,
in 1964
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Biography,
second part
Svetlanov devoted himself to composition both
fully and sporadically. Although he knew Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian
and Rodion Schedrin, his individual style differed markedly from that of
his famous contemporaries: by his own admission, he was fairly “conservative”,
deeply influenced by popular imagery (inherited from the Gnessin school?)
and without question disarmingly spontaneous
in emotional terms.
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Open letter to the President of the Russian
Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin
By Evgeny Svetlanov
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His musical tastes were extremely eclectic and as
a creator he sought to maintain a post-Romantic tradition
drawn from Miaskovsky, of whom he was a leading proponent, and Rachmaninov.
In response to the all too familiar question about a desert island, Svetlanov’s
reply was as follows: “A desert island? Never. My colleague Yuri Temirkanov
will tell you that he would gladly take a copy of Mozart’s “Requiem” …Personally,
I would rather be on a star! With the score of Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances.”
Apart from “his” orchestra, from
which he was inexplicably dismissed at the end of his life (“I have
no intention whatsoever of trying to guess the real reasons for my dismissal.
I think that would have major implications, even greater than some people
think …”), Svetlanov conducted many Western orchestras: the BBC, the
Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic
Orchestra (England), the Philadelphia Orchestra (United States), the Orchestre
de Paris, the Orchestre National de France, the Radio France Philharmonic
Orchestra, Strasbourg Philharmonic and Montpellier
National Orchestra, the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia (Italy), the Berlin and Munich Philharmonic
Orchestras (Germany),the
Vienna Symphony Orchestra (Austria),
the Orchestre du Théâtre
royal de La Monnaie (Belgium), the Amsterdam
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (Holland), the Swedish
Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish
and Danish Radio Orchestras, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Göteborg
Symphony Orchestra, etc. In 1992, he was also appointed principal conductor
of the Hague Het Residentie Orchestra (Holland), with which he completed
many recordings.
Evgeny Svetlanov, conductor, composer, pianist, author and a keen amateur
fisherman and footballer, deeply influenced the musical scene in the second
half of the 20th century. He died aged 73 at his home in Moscow in the night
of 3-4 May 2002. Hailed by many including President Putin as one of the
last giants of Russian culture, he lies next to his mother in the Vagankovo
cemetery.
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