Symphony №2, "Navna"

 

Sergey Zhukov, who had taken up such a serious subject - because we understand its seriousness - with this task. Symphony, of course, was a suссess.

Some dissatisfaction has remained only on performance, rather, from performing the composition: for this work required a more powerful symphony orchestra to an enhanced group of percussions equilibrated as extended group of string and wood. And now drums, coming to the fore in the middle section of the symphony, depicting rampant infernal power, made this section more meaningful than this, apparently, conceived by the author. In any case, this dark climax of impressive: the scale of the symphony injection, saturation of the score, the power of tragic pathos.

Still in first place in the symphony - the forces of Light. The beginning of the symphony can be described as "Spring Awakening and Growth" (a word about the beginning of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring"). S. Zhukov masterfully able to pass a continuing time, gradually to unfold without having to go to the dramatization, and staying for a long time within the contemplation, filling it with all new internal currents. The impression of freshness, initially, increasing means timbre - the introduction of unusual instruments, updating the orchestral palette. Music, devoid of dramatic tension, however, sounds rich: long vintage harmony always complicated, filled with braided polyphonic voices, updated timbre atmosphere.

To give some idea about the music, call a few pertinent, in my opinion, music associations:

Start "Daphnis and Chloe" by Ravel. Only harmonically more sophisticated and slower deployment. The second part of "The Rite of Spring". The slow sections of "Preliminary Action" Scriabin-Nemtin. Especially those sections where the vocal sound solo voices (for example - melting before the final climax in the final part).

Or the words of Daniel Andreev:

This - in altitude, hitherto unknown
For us
She bent down, looking
Space Earth
I thought: where would
Touch the earth for the first time.

... ... ... ...

Deeper and deeper penetrated, entered
In the wild bosom.
Wild Lakes blue censer
Gently steaming fog ...
On the slopes
Perfume Vayity on the wings of heavy,
In the haze of flailing, flying ...
Lodge cradled her stihiali
In floodplains and dolah.

Midnight frothed lazori in the clouds,
In the clouds over the quiet, pine Khmara ...
Coniferous Chmar wilderness burning
There was a smell in the steeper.
Bed the inevitable
Odor - wormwood! ..
The forest turns
Woodpeckers rattled ... Winds rocked
Air on dreams swamps.


On the middle section I have already said - this is a breakthrough infernal, which is not very visible next to the already swollen symphony of light, and then take possession of all the sound space, the host rampant.

The third section of the symphony: the overcoming of darkness, light, exciting symphonic sprawl, encouraged by the Light, a dazzling climax, and then - the gradual dissolution, transparence, deflation bright sounds.

Here in the music, even more obviously than in the beginning of the symphony, manifested its Russian flavor. Sergey Zhukov, he did it, over which the fighting, with varying success, many composers: to write the sound of folk material into the score, while maintaining its timbre and tonal character and combining with the complexity of this distinctive modern intonation of language. The difficulty is in connecting the different dramatic logics: professional music strives to flexibly allocate gradations of tension, even sharpen and artistically submit the ups and downs of tension, and folklore tends to stay at a static height chosen. Here the composer achieved a convincing unity: a few fragments of different tempo and the energy charge is very organic found their place in different parts of a symphony of growth does not destroy the continuity of development and have made him a rousing impulse.

In general, the symphony took place. Do not hesitate to say: of all that has hitherto appeared in the art "in the wake of Andrejev”, this symphony has become the biggest phenomenon. Music has confirmed that this is only the first part of the conceived of a large loop, so that we will continue to wait.

 

E. Moroshkin