In my early days in classical radio, I was advised that in pronouncing Rodion Shchedrin’s last name, the “shch” should be said as in “freSH CHeese” (i.e. “SH-CHedrin”). His obituary writer in today’s New York Times begs to differ, using the phonetic “shu-deh-REEN.”
However you say it, Shchedrin, who has died at the age of 92, was perhaps the most successful composer in Russia during the late and post-Soviet eras – an indefatigable creator of concert works, chamber, instrumental, and vocal music, opera, film scores, and ballets. (He was married to Bolshoi prima ballerina and choreographer Maya Plisetskaya.)
And he managed it all without having joined the Communist Party. He took pride in the fact that no one in his family ever had. He was warned by the authorities not to become involved with Plisetskaya, whose parents had been labeled dissidents. (Her father was executed on Stalin’s orders and her mother exiled to Siberia.) But he went ahead and married her anyway. The couple lived under constant surveillance.
Nevertheless, despite official impediments, they managed gradually to attain recognition at the top of their respective fields. Shchedrin’s status earned him the post of chairman of the Composers Union of the Russian Federation, which he held from 1973 to 1990.
His international reputation was enhanced during the era of perestroika. Following the collapse of the USSR, he and his wife lived mostly in Munich. Despite the hardships they had endured under the Soviet regime (he himself admitted they were among the luckier ones), he expressed gratitude to have been born in Russia to pursue music.
I first encountered Shchedrin’s best-known work, the “Carmen Suite” (1967) – an audacious reimagining of Bizet’s famous themes for strings and percussion – in 1992, on a concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf. In 2021, the work was revived in Philadelphia with fresh (cheese?) choreography by Brian Sanders, performed by JUNK.
I suppose it is possible I had already heard it over the radio at some point, as a listener, but hearing it live really made an impression. I was happy to be able to hear it again at the Princeton Festival in 2022.
Shchedrin also wrote a series of concertos for orchestra. The most notorious of these is called “Naughty Limericks” (1963). (The naughty Shchedrin once slashed the hand of one of his conservatory classmates with a razor!) My favorite is the Concerto for Orchestra No. 3 (1989), subtitled “Old Russian Circus Music.”
The liturgical work “The Sealed Angel” (1988), for choir and flute, is based on a story by Nikolay Leskov. The plot concerns a rural community which protects a religious icon that has been confiscated by officials and sealed with wax. Shchedrin’s grandfather was an orthodox priest.
Here’s a nifty video of Shchedrin playing Rachmaninoff with Evgeny Kissin and Daniil Trifanov – piano six-hands!
Shchedrin was born on December 16, Beethoven’s birthday. I spare a thought for him every year, when the Master from Bonn sucks all the air out of the room.
R.I.P. Rodion Shchedrin.
PHOTO: The composer with his wife, Bolshoi ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, for whom he frequently composed. (The “Carmen Suite” was written for her.) Plisetskaya died in 2015 at the age of 89.
