Musorgskij / ČajkovskijMussorgsky / Tchaikovsky

The theme of the witches’ sabbath during Midsummer’s Eve is implemented in Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky’s work Night on Bald Mountain. The original vocal-instrumental project was never realized; the work became famous only as a fantasy for orchestra arranged by a colleague Rimsky-Korsakov. The birth of a child, in this case a brother’s daughter, guided Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s hand in composing the Orchestral Suite No. 2 in C major, Op. 53. A waltz, a scherzo, a dynamic Russian Cossack dance, as well as lullaby motifs captivated the public at the premiere so much that the piece was played repeatedly at a concert of the Russian Music Society in Moscow a week later.

The debuting young Iranian conductor Hossein Pishkar excelled as a child in playing the Persian stringed instrument tar, later in composition and playing the piano, and after winning the prestigious Deutcher Dirgentenpreis, the attention of the general public was drawn to him for his conducting art.