Stravinsky's Long-Lost Funeral Song to be Broadcast Live on medici.tv and Facebook

On Friday, December 2, 2016 medici.tv will broadcast what is being billed as the world premiere of Funeral Song, Igor Stravinsky's recently rediscovered work for orchestra, live from the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg with Maestro Valery Gergiev leading the Mariinsky Orchestra. The program will also include Stravinsky's The Firebird and Rimsky-Korsakov's Suite from The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya.

The twenty-six year old Stravinsky wrote Funeral Song in 1908 to commemorate the death of his teacher, the celebrated Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The 12-minute work was performed once at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where Stravinsky was a student, on January 17, 1909, and received mixed reviews. Just a year later, Stravinsky rose to fame with the premiere of his ballet The Firebird at Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in Paris.

Long considered to be lost, Funeral Song was rediscovered by a librarian in the St. Petersburg Conservatory archives in September 2015. Stravinsky remembered Funeral Song as one of the best of his early works and lamented the disappearance of the score. In his autobiography, published in 1935, Stravinsky wrote:

Unfortunately, the score of this work disappeared during the revolution...I no longer remember the music, but I recall very well my idea for the work. It was like a procession of all the soli instruments of the orchestra, coming in turns to each leave a melody in the form of a crown on the master's tomb, all the while with a low background of murmuring tremolos, like the vibrations of bass voices singing in a choir.

The work serves as a bridge between Stravinsky's early years and the ballets that brought him international recognition, including Petrushka and The Rite of Spring.

"To listen to a work for the very first time is always an exciting experience, which is by definition usually presented by a living composer," says Hervé Boissière, Founder and CEO of medici.tv. "This time, the event is even more extraordinary because we will discover a work composed by one the musical giants of the twentieth century, Igor Stravinsky. This rebirth is a truly historical moment for medici.tv and we are very grateful to Valery Gergiev and to all the people who make this world premiere possible"

This all-Russian program featuring Funeral Song will be livestreamed from the Mariinsky Theatre on medici.tv and Facebook (medici.tv) on Friday, December 2, 2017 at 10:00PM St. Petersburg Time/7:00PM London Time/2:00PM New York Time.

Here is the link to the broadcast: http://www.medici.tv/#!/valery-gergiev-stravinsky-chant-funebre

To post a comment, you must register and login.