The programme of the musicAeterna Orchestra and Choir soloists, conducted by Teodor Currentzis, consists of major works by two contemporary composers, Hungarian master György Kurtág and Estonian master Arvo Pärt.

György Kurtág is undeniably a major figure in European music of the 20th and the 21st centuries. Few of his contemporaries have managed to find the same degree of individuality of expression, as well as a similar balance of severe self-restraint and freedom in dealing with the entire legacy of European music from Machaut to Beethoven, and from Stravinsky to Stockhausen. György Kurtág's music is both expressive and ascetic, full of secret messages to friends and composers of the past, dramatic in a theatrical sense – that is the degree to which the gestures are so sharp and eloquent.

Among the composer's favourite genre titles are 'requiem', 'tombstone', 'dedication', 'farewell'. The work on the cycle Songs of Despair and Sorrow for choir and instruments was started in 1980 and completed only in 1994. Six poems by Russian poets from Lermontov to Tsvetaeva selected by Kurtág treat the same theme in different ways, but with equal desperation – a man (the author) in the face of impending non-existence. The score includes rare instrumental timbres – a celesta, two harmoniums, four bayans, and a huge percussion group.

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classic of the 20th and the 21st centuries. Having abandoned the musical radicalism of his youth, the composer developed his own language, bringing him closer to the minimalists, but based on his own original compositional technique, which Pärt himself called tintinnabuli, 'the method of bells.'

Miserere for soloists, choir and instrumental ensemble is one of the composer's fundamental works. The half an hour piece, completed in 1989, dramatically juxtaposes the texts of Psalm 51 and eight stanzas from the medieval sequence hymn Dies irae (Day of Wrath). Psalm 51 is performed slowly and quietly by an ensemble of soloists, with pauses separating each word from another. The composer explained this principle as follows, 'There is one breath for each word, as though after pronouncing each word one has to gather one’s strength for the next word. It's a chain that intertwines breaths and exhalations, hope and despair.' In the furious middle part of the composition, the Dies irae section, Pärt creates the effect of 'structured chaos' using the medieval technique of prolation canon, where the same theme is carried out at five different tempos. Following the question from the seventh stanza of Dies irae, 'What then shall I, unhappy man, allege? Whom shall I invoke as protector? When even the just shall hardly be secure?', the penitential psalm continues. In the finale, the eighth stanza of Dies irae sounds – contrary to the centuries-old tradition, the composer interprets it as an answered prayer, a promise of reconciliation with God.

On the programme:
JEAN-PHILIPPE RAMEAU (1683–1764)

Prelude

Scene of the earthquake and choir of Incas Dans les abîmes
Opera-ballet Les Indes galantes, RCT 44 (1735)
Act II ('Les Incas du Pérou'), Scene 4

Duet of Shepherdess and Mercury Suivez les loi with the choir;
Tambourin en rondeau
Opera-ballet Les Fêtes d'Hébé, ou Les Talents lyriques, RCT 41 (1739)
Act III (La Danse), Scenes 6 and 7
The soloists:
Iveta Simonyan, soprano
Yulia Vakula, mezzo-soprano

A fragment of the overture to a musical comedy
Platée ou Junon Jalouse, RCT 53 (1745)

Air of La Folie Amour, lance tes traits
Comédie lyrique Platée ou Junon Jalouse
Act III, Scene 4
The soloist:
Yulia Vakula, mezzo-soprano

Rigaudons I and II;
contredanse and arietta of Thespis Chantons Bacchus with the choir
Comédie lyrique Platée ou Junon Jalouse
Prologue, Scene 3

Choir of the Spartans Que tout gémisse, que tout s'unisse
Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux, RCT 32 (1737)
Act I, Scene 1

Thunderstorm scene; entrance of Mercury
Comédie lyrique Platée ou Junon Jalouse
Act I, Scene 1

Arietta of Cindor Zéphyrs, calmez la terre et l'onde with the choir
Ballet héroïque Zaïs, RCT 60 (1748)
Act II, Scene 4
The soloist:
Jak Martirosyan, baritone

The first gavotte of Graces, Pleasures and Arts; Arietta of Amour Renais plus brillante; The second minuet and tambourine of Graces, Pleasures and Arts
Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux, RCT 32 (1737)
Prologue, scene 2
The soloist:
Alexey Kursanov, tenor

Entrance of HébéConnoissez notre puissance;
Scene of the Hébé’s suite, Pollux and Hébé’s Servant
Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux
Act II, Scene 5
The soloists:
Tatiana Bikmukhametova, soprano
Jak Martirosyan, baritone

Passepieds of Happy Shadows I-II;
Ariette of The Other Happy Shadow Autant d'amours que de fleurs
Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux
Act IV, Scene 2
The soloist:
Ksenia Dorodova, soprano

Arietta of the Castor Séjour de l'éternelle paix
Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux
Act IV, Scene 1
The soloist:
Alexey Kursanov, tenor

Recitative and arietta of Phébé Castor revoit le jour, mercure le ramène / Soulevons tous les dieux
Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux
Act V, Scene 1
The soloist:
Yulia Vakula, mezzo-soprano

Arietta of Phani Viens, Hymen
Opera-ballet Les Indes galantes
Act II ('Les Incas du Pérou'), Scene 2
The soloist:
Iveta Simonyan, soprano

Duet of Amour and Hébé Traversez les plus vastes mers with the choir
Opera-ballet Les Indes galantes
Prologue, Scene 5
The soloists:
Iveta Simonyan, soprano
Diana Nosyreva, soprano

Arietta of Hébé Musettes, résonnez with the choir; musette
Opera-ballet Les Indes galantes
Prologue, Scene 2
The soloist:
Ksenia Dorodova, soprano

Trio of Phébé, Pollux, and TélaïreSortez, sortez, d'esclavage with the choir; the scene with monsters and demons
Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux
Act III, Scene 4
The soloists:
Tatiana Bikmukhametova, soprano
Yulia Vakula, mezzo-soprano
Andrey Nemzer, baritone

The First Gavotte of Graces, Pleasures and Arts;
ariette of Amour Renais plus brillante
Tragédie en musique Castor and Pollux, RCT 32 (1737)
Prologue, Scene 2
The soloist:
Alexey Kursanov, tenor

Minuets I and II; dances of madmen I and II
Comédie lyrique Platée ou Junon Jalouse
Act II, Scene 5

The Chaconne for Planets and Constellations;
the choir of stars Que les Cieux, que la Terre et l'Onde
Tragédie en musique Castor et Pollux
Act V, Scene 7

ChoirTendre Amour
Opera-ballet Les Indes galantes
Act III. ‘Les Fleurs, Fête persane’. Scene 7

The programme is subject to change.

The Context.Diana Vishneva Festival dance troupe presents Hora. This is a 2009 production that the renowned Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin transferred to Moscow and staged with the dancers of the Context troupe in March 2026.

Horos is Greek for dance, round dance. For Israelis, this word has its own very important meaning: hora is a dance of the Jewish renaissance, a round dance that unites souls. Ohad Naharin's Hora is a paraphrase of this dance and his own special view on rebirth and creation.
Shira Vitali: 'In 1974, Japanese composer Isao Tomita released the album Snowflakes Are Dancing, which completely changed the canon of electronic music programming. 35 years later, Ohad Naharin presented the performance Hora, a piece for eleven dancers inspired by Tomita's music. Similar to the composer who reinterpreted familiar classical works by Claude Debussy using a synthesizer, Naharin places us between the familiar and the completely unknown. Hora is an evergreen bubble that exists outside of time and space, both natural and synthetic, permanent and continuously changing. The characters of the performance comprehend a new bodily language, which, however, is based on familiar plastic quotes. Eleven dancers embody all the beauty of the struggle for individuality, even when merging into absolute unity. Relying on folk dance, they destroy it by creating new choreographic codes; they explore the territories of the body, wanting to be manifested.'

Ohad Naharin is a choreographer and creator of Gaga movement language. Born in 1952 in Kibbutz Mizra in northern Israel, he began his dancing career with the Batsheva troupe in 1974, and made his debut as a choreographer in New York in 1980. Ten years later, Naharin was appointed Artistic Director of the Batsheva dance troupe and founded its youth company Batsheva Ensemble. He has created more than thirty works for both companies, as well as productions for other companies, including the Netherlands Dance Theatre, the ballet of the Paris Opera, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens in Montreal and many other dance troupes around the world. In addition to working on stage, Naharin developed the Gaga system, an innovative technique for studying the movements and daily training of Batsheva dancers, which has spread worldwide among both dancers and non-dancers. After almost 30 years of leading the troupe, Ohad resigned as Artistic Director in 2018, but continues to work with the company as a choreographer. Batsheva also continues to be a place for Naharin where he conducts the Gaga research, development, and teaching.

The Context dance troupe was established in 2022 on the initiative of the contemporary choreography festival Context. Diana Vishneva. The company brought together dancers who possess not only high performing technique and creative ambitions, but also a breadth of creative views and a willingness to develop and experiment. Over the four years of its existence, the dance company has presented many premieres on the stages of the Bolshoi Theatre, the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theatre, the Yermolova Theatre, the Stanislavsky Electrotheatre; and managed to work with such Russian choreographers as Pavel Glukhov, Olga Labovkina, Oleg Stepanov, Anna Shchekleina, Alexey Rukinov, Rima Pipoyan, Kirill Radev and others. The Artistic Director of the troupe is ballerina Diana Vishneva.