MusicAeterna: Reimagining Classical Music

November 11, 2024

MusicAeterna is an innovative musical project which consists of an orchestra, a choir, and a dance troupe under the leadership of the Greek-Russian conductor Theodor Currentzis. It was founded in 2004 in Novosibirsk, Siberia’s largest city, which was an unusual place for an innovative ensemble, since it is far away from Russia’s 2 cultural capitals, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The innovative approach of MusicAeterna lies in the the implementation of a historically informed performance (which is when the music is played on the instruments from the same time as the music was composed), as well as the eagerness to perform the whole range of classical music, from Baroque to Modernist to Contemporary. In 2011, MusicAeterna moved to the opera and ballet theater of Perm, an industrial city in the Urals which was then undergoing a so-called Perm Cultural Revolution. In Perm, Theodor Currentzis took leadership of the annual Diaghilev Festival, during which many operas and ballets that are not part of the traditional theater repertoire were staged. This festival put Perm, with barely 1 million inhabitants, on the map as a must-visit place for many opera goers from Russian major cities. This is a big achievement in itself, since it offered an opportunity to experience classical music, opera, and ballet in a more contemporary form, more accessible to the broader society than the one performed in a traditional way. This contemporary form does not reduce the richness and intensity of classical music; instead, it gives a new life and a new taste to it.
When I was growing up, my parents or grandmother took me to classical concerts several times a year, and I was always bored listening to them . There were two exceptions: I really enjoyed the concert performance of Richard Wagner’s “Rheingold” (by the way, La Scala starts “Der Ring des Nibelungen” cycle this November; I recommend everyone to either go to it or watch it online via LaScalaTV) due to its immense dramatism and the MusicAeterna concert. That is why when I learned about the upcoming concert of MusicAeterna in Parma, I decided to seize the opportunity and broaden my horizons regarding the perception of classical music. The program featured Giuseppe Verdi’s Overture to “La Forza del Destino”, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme”, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s “5th Symphony”, with excerpts from Sergei Prokofiev’s “Romeo and Juliet” played as an encore. As the review published in La Repubblica Parma duly noted, MusicAeterna was capable of reaching the two extremes of dynamics: both pianissimo and fortissimo were played accurately and clearly. This allowed it to open the full potential of music to the audience, to stay on the edge without losing the balance and falling into either blandness or blurriness of music (at least that’s what I sensed at the concert). The way Currentzis conducts is sometimes described as showing off; however, in my humble opinion, his behavior on the podium is perfectly natural for a person who is completely immersed in the music they conduct, and this immersion, along with the professionalism of the whole orchestra is what allows the music to be right on the edge.
One does not need to go to a concert to get acquainted with the work of Theodor Currentzis and MusicAeterna. There is plenty of recorded music, as well as open rehearsals, available online at the website of MusicAeterna, as well as the Youtube channel of SWR Symphonieorchester, which Currentzis conducted from 2018 to 2024. The music recorded includes the music of the contemporary composer Alexey Retinsky of Russian-Ukrainian origin, as well as church music sung during Easter celebrations in Greece, fragments of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Traviata” combined with an atmospheric video in dark tones, and Adagietto of Gustav Maler’s 5th Symphony accompanied by the video filmed on the Venetian cemetery on San Michele island (the place where such Russian cultural pioneers as Joseph Brodsky, Igor Stravinsky, and Sergei Diaghilev are buried). One of the most provocative pieces of music performed by MusicAeterna is, however, “The Riot of Spring” by Dmitri Kourliandski, composed in dialogue with Igor Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” for the Ruhrtriennale in 2013. The premiere of this Stravinsky’s ballet itself in 1913 caused quite a sensation among the public of Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris due to its expressiveness, provocative aesthetic, and expirementality in both dance and music. “The Riot of Spring” performed one century later is no less experimental: its 13 minutes consist of the same musical note played by the whole orchestra throughout the performance; the musicians leave their seats throughout the performance, wander across the concert hall, give their instruments to the audience to try to play the note, and in the end some of the musicians even destroy the instruments (apparently, cheap ones were specifically bought for this performance). Theodore Currentzis presides over this Bacchanalia by standing on a chair playing the violin, the queen of the orchestra. The goal of this seemingly purposeless provocativeness is to vividly explain to the modern audience how outlandish was “The Rite of Spring” in the second decade of the 20th century.
MusicAeterna has influenced the way I perceive music. It taught me that music is indeed eternal (as its name alludes), and helped me expand my tastes and widen the range of music I listen to. I urge the readers to try listening to the music performed by MusicAeterna, and maybe it would also open new musical horizons like it did for me. I dare you to plunge yourselves into the whole magnificent world of modern classical music.

Sources:

https://theblueprint.ru/culture/music/kurentzis

https://www.lucernefestival.ch/en/program/directory-of-artists/musicaeterna/2128