“Caucasian Sketches” Suite No. (1894)…..Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov IV. Procession of the Sardar (1859-1935) Transcribed by Greg Flores Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov received enough early musical training at home to choose composition as a career from the beginning. At age sixteen he was accepted to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he became one of the most successful pupils of Rimsky-Korsakov. Here he achieved enough distinction that at graduation he was appointed conductor of the symphony orchestra and head of the musical academy at Tbilisi, in Georgia, which was a province of Russia in the Caucasian Mountains on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. For seven years he absorbed the folk music of the Georgian people, who were ethnically distinct from his own Russian culture. His success, both as conductor and educator, led to his appointment in 1893 as Professor of Music at the Moscow Conservatory, where he spent the rest of his career, rising to Director of the conservatory from 1905 through 1920. He was strongly influenced by his liking for folk music, especially that of the more exotic regions of the Russian empire. Many of his compositions are based on elements of folksong, including the Caucasian Sketches. This is probably his greatest work, composed immediately after his return to Moscow. The finale, The Procession of the Sardar, is a military march worthy of the commander of a legion of fierce soldiery. Perhaps returning home following battle, the Sardar – followed by all of his army stepping proudly after a glorious victory – enters the city before a worshipping throng. Sardar, a word of Indo-Persian origin also spelled as Sirdar or Serdar, is a title of nobility that was originally used to denote princes, noblemen, and other aristocrats. It has also been used to denote a Persian military commander. It is used synonymously with the title Amir. Portraying Pomp at its highest, The Procession of the Sardar is a fitting climax to a most colorful orchestral vision of Russian-Orientalism.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 03:45:02 +0000
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