Silvia Massarelli conducts Vasilij Sergeevič Kalinnikow
Silvia Massarelli Conductor
Silvia Massarelli combines enthusiasm and dedication to music with an admirable rigor in concertation and a natural predisposition to share the joy of making music, creating an atmosphere of solar energy that characterizes each of her interpretations.
The particular affinity with the world of French music, the attention to the most creative expressions of contemporary music as well as to a non-obvious repertoire make Silvia Massarelli an unusual interpreter in the international musical panorama.
On May 3rd 2023, she conducted the Symphony in g Minor No.1 of the Russian composer Vasilij Sergeevič Kalinnikow with the "Giuseppe Tartini"- Symphony Orchestra in Teatro Domenico Rossetti Trieste.
The concert was a great success due to the rediscovery of this impressive work.
The Composer Vasilij Sergeevič Kalinnikow (1866-1901)
Although Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Alexander Borodin can be recognized as role models, Vasilij Sergeevič Kalinnikow's music has a thoroughly independent character. Kalinnikov's talent is particularly evident in his very imaginative and catchy melody. His orchestration is always colorful and resonant. In his larger-scale works, he attached great importance to an intensive cyclical linking of the individual movements. It is particularly remarkable that his music has an extremely positive mood and seems downright optimistic, although it was written in the face of his incurable illness.
Kalinnikow received some attention during his lifetime and was appreciated by important musicians such as Sergei Rachmaninoff. After his death, his notoriety declined significantly. In the early 1950s, however, Kalinnikow experienced a renaissance, as his music was in many ways consistent with the state-required aesthetics of socialist realism.
Kalinnikow, the son of a police officer and older brother of the composer Viktor Sergeyevich Kalinnikov, came from a poor background. From 1879 he attended a theological seminary in Oryol, where he was soon allowed to conduct a choir. In 1884 he began studying music at the Moscow Conservatory, but had to drop out for financial reasons. A scholarship enabled him to study composition and bassoon at the School of the Moscow Philharmonic Society from 1885, which he completed in 1892. He also worked as a music copyist and temporary musician in various orchestras. In 1892, through the mediation of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Kalinnikow received the post of conductor at the Maly Theater in Moscow.
In 1893 he became assistant conductor at the Italian Theater. Due to his living conditions, which were characterized by great poverty, he soon fell ill with tuberculosis. He spent the last years of his life in Crimea, hoping for relief from his illness through the local climatic conditions. He lived on a small pension from the Moscow Philharmonic Society.
His financial situation was eased somewhat towards the end of his life because Sergei Rachmaninoff stood up for him and found a publisher for his works.