WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING!

LIVE RECORDING FROM THE SAARLÄNDISCHES STAATSTHEATER, SAARBRÜCKEN 2007

SAARLÄNDISCHES STAATSORCHESTER
CHORUS OF THE SAARLÄNDISCHES STAATSTHEATER
Conducted by WILL HUMBURG · Directed by IMMO KARAMAN
Choreography by FABIAN POSCA · Set Design by JOHANN JÖRG
Costume Design by NICOLA REICHERT


ICE AND STEEL - A UNIQUE HISTORICAL WITNESS!
During the 1920s Vladimir Dechevov (1889 – 1955) was regarded as one of the most promising younger Soviet composers. Darius Milhaud, who made his acquaintance in 1926 during a visit to Leningrad, praised him in the French press as a “genius” and “extremely original”. However, subsequent attempts to make
his compositions better known abroad were unsuccessful.

In 1929 followed Dechevov’s best-known composition: Ice and Steel. But such were the ideological tensions of this period that this avant-garde work soon disappeared from the public stage. Although Dechevov was one of the chief proponents of the left wing musical avant-garde in the 1920s and explicitly came out in favour of critical appropriation of elements from Western modernism, he was not subjected to direct
ideological attacks during the Stalinist era. Neither, however, despite clearly moderating his compositional style, did he succeed in obtaining a prominent position
in the conformist musical culture of socialist realism that held sway after 1932.

It was only after the outbreak of the Second World War that he started once again
to produce major works of his own: ballet music based on classical materials and patriotic tone poems. However, these did not prevent his name from increasingly
being forgotten.

„The last notes had hardly died away before someone called out ‘bravo!’ - and he was right. This production of ‘Ice and Steel’ is magnifi cent.“ (SR 2 KulturRadio)