Rodion Chédrine (1932-)
Suite Carmen, pour orchestre à cordes et percussions

Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt
Ruben Gazarian, direction

The Georgian Chamber Orchestra of Ingolstadt and their principal conductor Ruben Gazarian present their third new CD recording: Rodion Shchedrin’s “Carmen Suite“ is a tribute to the great russian prima ballerina and choreographer Maya Plisetskaya (*1925), who died in May 2015 in Munich, her chosen and adopted home. The recording will also honor her husband, the composer Rodion Shchedrin, who will celebrate his 85th birthday in 2017. This CD production is a live recording of a concert which took place on October 15, 2015 in Ingolstadt. Rodion Shchedrin composed the "Carmen Suite" in the mid-1960s for his wife. The composition for strings and percussion is music taken from a ballet based on motives from Georges Bizet’s Opera "Carmen". Familiar melodies from the opera "Carmen" are stylistically transformed by the use of colorful instrumentation which creates a markedly different atmosphere, as well as by the use of sharpened rhythms. Furthermore, the "Carmen Suite" also reflects upon motives from the second "L’Arlésienne Suite". The premiere of the "Carmen Suite" on the 20th of April 1967 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow caused an enormous scandal : Shchedrin’s Carmen, portrayed by Plisetskaya in a highly erotic manner, was too suggestive for the prudish Soviet society of the time, in addition to being too freedom-loving. In spite of this Plisetskaya was to personify Shchedrin’s Carmen in approximately 350 performances, for the last time in 1990 at the age of 65. For Shchedrin, his "Carmen Suite" became an outstanding success at an international level, and up until the present day it remains the most popular, well-known, and most frequently performed work of the composer who was valued and supported by Dmitri Shostakovich. Mats Ek has also referred to Shchedrin’s "Carmen Suite" for his 1992 reworking of Carmen in Stockholm.