Saturday, March 29, 2025
8:00 PM
The BSO and guest conductor Dima Slobodeniouk explore the intersection of quiet contemplation and fervent prayers, beginning with Arvo Pärt's Tabula Rasa — an introspective piece exploring silence, space, and spirituality that quietly changed the shape of 20th century music. The concert concludes with Mozart’s Requiem, an era-defining orchestral and choral work.
Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor
Alexander Velinzon and Lucia Lin, violins (Pärt)
Erin Morley, soprano
Avery Amereau, mezzo-soprano
Jack Swanson, tenor
Morris Robinson, bass
Tanglewood Festival Chorus,
James Burton, conductor
Arvo PÄRT Tabula Rasa
W.A. MOZART Requiem
In a preview of this concert, conductor Dima Slobdeniouk describes the deeply emotional power of Pärt's Tabula Rasa, as well as its way of magnifying the impact of Mozart's Requiem. To listen, use the player below, and read the transcript underneath.
TRANSCRIPT:
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Dima Slobodeniouk, who is back with the Boston Symphony for two weeks of concerts, which is just fantastic. Dima, I'm glad you're here, and thanks for a little of your time today. I appreciate it.
Dima Slobodeniouk Hi, Brian. Great to be back.
Brian McCreath The first week of your time here is devoted to two pieces and what powerful pieces they are, Arvo Pärt's "Tabula Rasa" and Mozart's Requiem. So let's talk about this Arvo Pärt piece first. It's a powerful piece made of simplicity. And so I wonder when you are conducting this piece, how big the challenge is that we're not even really witnessing. We think of virtuosity and technique as being great challenges for musicians and for music making, but this is sort of almost the opposite. There's such expanses of long and spacious notes. So tell me about the challenges of "Tabula Rasa."
Dima Slobodeniouk Well, now that you've mentioned the challenges and the virtuosity, it's an interesting aspect, how composers use the relation between the demand of the piece for the player and the outcome which a listener gets. Sometimes it could be super challenging for the player and sounds easy for the listener. And then sometimes it's the contrary. So in this piece, it is actually... Because it's so simple, it's very demanding, because every note is heard. But also every note has a meaning. And that becomes very apparent, not only for us on stage, but also for the audience. It is so exposed. In a way, it's two-dimensional, you know? It's not three-dimensional. It's really tabula rasa, being a blank piece of board or in English, what's the—
Brian McCreath We might even call it "open book."
Dima Slobodeniouk Open book, exactly.
Brian McCreath Or blank slate.
Dima Slobodeniouk Yeah, blank slate. I like that more because blank in this case could be maybe compared to black color, which is at the same time everything and nothing, you know? It's like having all the colors there, but at the time being blank in terms of content. So, this is a rather philosophical piece. And I would say it takes guts to write something like this, especially knowing that it was written, like, almost 50 years ago, and that was way out of content back then. It was very daring. Now, we have had music like this for already decades. Let's mention Morton Feldman, a piece for example called "Neither," which is about one hour of that. You kind of dive into the process of things evolving without you noticing them. And this is the same here. Things evolve all the time. The first movement is actually a set of variations. There are eight variations. Then comes a cadenza, which resembles a normal, let's say Romantic Classical form, and a coda. It doesn't sound at all like an ordinary classical piece. So what it addresses very strongly, I think, is the relationship between silence and sound. How important is silence in music? Many composers said that that's most important. And for us performers, it's the question of pacing. You know, sometimes when you phrase something, you actually are dealing with the material and then the space between the phrases or between melodies or whatever. So actually silence is what organizes music.
Brian McCreath And actually, I think especially of a composer you have a deep relationship with, which is Sibelius. He uses silence in these amazing ways, that you're churning along in something and suddenly there's nothing, and then he picks it up again.
Dima Slobodeniouk Exactly. Yeah, and nothing becomes a lot more than nothing. It's not when things stop, it's when you maybe get on the other side, somehow. I think silences and generally the relationship between how time passes while we listen to music, that really proves that time is very, very relative thing. And "Tabula Rasa," it's so meditative that I hope a person listening to this piece can, after a few minutes, get rid of expecting something to happen and just be in the moment and kind of float with us.
Brian McCreath Did you choose this piece specifically because Mozart's Requiem was going to be the other part of the program?
Dima Slobodeniouk That was the thought behind it. And we made the choices together with Tony when we were discussing the programs.
Brian McCreath Tony Fogg, the Artistic Vice President.
Dima Slobodeniouk Exactly. In fact, the idea of "Tabula Rasa" was Tony's, and I definitely accepted. I thought, okay, okay, this is my stuff. [McCreath and Slobodeniouk laugh]
Brian McCreath So, this is a piece you've done in other situations before?
Dima Slobodeniouk This is the piece I'm doing for the first time ever.
Brian McCreath You're doing it for the first time?
Dima Slobodeniouk Yes.
Brian McCreath Do you remember the first time you actually came into contact with the piece?
Dima Slobodeniouk Yeah, it was a few years ago. Actually not... in my childhood definitely. I have done some music of this kind, but this is the first time with Pärt's "Tabula Rasa."
Brian McCreath We're talking today on Wednesday, so it's a little early in the week in the flow of how this is all going to play out, but now that you have stood before the orchestra and you have worked with this piece in rehearsal, what do you now see in this piece that you didn't before as a conductor?
Dima Slobodeniouk It is always the question of dynamics between the musicians, because actually this is the piece which I'm, yes, I'm conducting, but at the same time, it can be played without. So my task is more like an active observer, I would say. An observer with an option of steering things around. Not changing, steering, which is actually the case in other music as well. The conductor is someone who steers, not necessarily controls. Control comes through the emotion, through the inspiration.
Brian McCreath Mozart Requiem, then, may even sound a little different to our ears after experiencing "Tabula Rasa."
Dima Slobodeniouk Definitely.
Brian McCreath Yeah. How so, to you?
Dima Slobodeniouk It starts from a very introverted, intimate first movement. And I think having heard "Tabula Rasa" in the first half, I mean, you can't just forget it because that's a strong experience. It's basically half an hour dedicated to meditating on... on whatever comes to a person's mind and conscious. We are dashing through our life in such a speed nowadays that 27 minutes of peace—and I don't mean a piece of music, but peace of mind and concentrating on something very basic is so important.
Brian McCreath And you're right, that opening with the clarinets in the Requiem keeps us in that space for a little bit before it takes us into new spaces that Mozart writes.
Dima Slobodeniouk Absolutely, yeah. And I need to say that Mozart actually didn't write this for clarinets. It's a two basset horns. And I'm so happy that the players of the BSO are actually using basset horn.
Brian McCreath Oh! [McCreath chuckles] I didn't realize that, wow.
Dima Slobodeniouk It's a different instrument and it's somehow much more chamber music. It's a little bit more focused, the sound, and maybe bright, not as round as the clarinet.
Brian McCreath And Mozart Requiem, is this also a piece that you're doing for the first time or is this one—
Dima Slobodeniouk No, no, Mozart Requiem I've done.
Brian McCreath You've done it many times, yeah. When you're working through the Mozart Requiem, and again, this is still early in our week, but you have "Tabula Rasa," as you say, still in the air, if I can put it that way. Does that really have an effect on your choices, your tempos, your balances, or is it a little bit more subtle than that?
Dima Slobodeniouk It's more subtle than that. I wouldn't say it has an effect on choices of tempi or balances. I think Mozart's Requiem is not a bombastic piece, though we are using quite substantial forces for it. But the aim is to make it sound chamber music-like. At the same time, it's a very profound piece. One shouldn't really try to place it on a... how would I say, dry ground, you know? It needs oxygen and it needs the minerals and power, many times, but at the same time it goes down to a very personal level. For example, the numbers with the soloists only. His writing is not operatic. For example, if you compare it to Verdi's Requiem, that also gets very personal in expression, but it has a very different kind of material, the sand or the bricks, whatever it is, soil it's made of.
Brian McCreath I guess I should preface this question with stating the fact that Mozart didn't complete it, that [Franz Xaver] Süssmayr actually completed it, so it's not all Mozart's music. Some of it is a little bit drawn from sketches and things like that. Having said that, what does the Requiem show us in Mozart that none of his other pieces do?
Dima Slobodeniouk Just like with other composers and their late pieces, there's a certain simplicity present here, which actually becomes a very strong way of expression. So it's the simplicity you could address in "Tabula Rasa" as well. But like with many composers, they understand that less is more. It's a very commonly used expression, but in this case, it really hits the stone. And Süssmayr's version, there are other versions of this, but I feel that this is as close as it gets. The thing is that we don't really know for sure what he would have written, but he had a lot of sketches. And even after "Lacrimosa," the rest of the movements are—First of all, he did it to the best of his understanding of Mozart's style, and there was understanding, for sure. We have a very good edition of it, which sometimes addresses a few mistakes which he made and fixes it. But still gives you an option of using the original, written by Süssmayr. There are small, small things, you know, like, for example, the voice leading and some harmonies and, you know, something very subtle.
Dima Slobodeniouk But nevertheless, I think it works wonderfully as it is. And if I didn't know that after "Lacrimosa," the rest is not composed.. It would be wrong, actually, to say that it's not composed by Mozart. That's not really true.
Brian McCreath It just wasn't completed?
Dima Slobodeniouk Yeah, it was not completed. But many composers, and Mozart was one of them, they work in putting the ideas as sketches. Back then, copying was not very common. So he had to start the score from the beginning, writing his own score. So for performances, it was a score from the beginning till the end written by Süssmayr. But he obviously copied whatever was already present. So our job, my job, is to believe in what we do. So it is always a subjective question, whether or not it is. But it's more like maybe for a theoretical debate than actually for determining whether music is better or worse. [Slobodeniouk laughs]
Brian McCreath Yeah, for sure. No, I mean, this is a piece that audiences love to hear. And so what was Süssmayr, what was Mozart... It fades into insignificance when we're listening to the music.
Dima Slobodeniouk Absolutely, absolutely.
Brian McCreath It's just unbelievably powerful music.