Olga Volkova's Solo Concert

Olga Volkova is back on the NOVAT stage!

The outstanding violinist of our time will present a chamber program to the Siberian public. The program focuses on the music of Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, two composers who defined the artistic language of Russian music of the 20th century. In the year of the 120th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich's birth, the appeal to his legacy acquires a special depth and significance. The program will open with two Prokofiev’s sonatas for violin and piano. Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 80 is one of the composer's most tense and gloomy works, which he worked on for almost ten years, including during the Great Patriotic War. Prokofiev himself said that in the finale, “through the fog one can hear a cold wind blowing along the cemetery,” and this music requires not only impeccable technique from the performer, but also the utmost inner concentration. Sonata No. 2 in D Major, Op. 94bis, on the contrary, is filled with light and transparency. Originally written as a flute sonata, it was arranged for violin on the advice of David Oistrakh and became one of the most lyrical and classically clear pages of Prokofiev's chamber legacy.

The second part will feature Dmitri Shostakovich's Sonata for Violin and Piano Op. 134, the composer's last chamber work in this genre and one of his most personal statements. Written in 1968 for David Oistrakh by the author, who was already seriously ill, the sonata is perceived as a musical confession and the result of his life. In it, tragedy and irony, rigidity and restrained lyrics combine in an extremely honest and poignant dialogue with time and the listener.

In the sonatas of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, the piano acts as an equal partner of the violin: the part is rich, dramaturgically significant and forms a full-fledged dialogue, in which inner tension and semantic depth of chamber sound are born. The piano part in all the works of the program will be performed by the wonderful musician — pianist Yana Nagieva.

Olga Volkova's return to the NOVAT’s stage is a rare opportunity to hear iconic works of the 20th century in chamber format, where every intonation acquires a special expressiveness, and music becomes a space of deep and personal conversation.