DESCRIPTION:
BETH LEVIN, piano

Live recording of Elegia (in memoriam Ivan A. Djeneeff), B 3.59, by Vladimir Drozdoff, 1882-1960.

October 13, 2016
The National Opera Center of America
Marc A. Scorca Hall
New York, NY

The Drozdoff Society's Impromptu! Classical Music Recital Series
Recording: Joe Patrych

Little information survives about the relationship between Drozdoff and the Russian painter, Ivan Djeneeff (1868-1955), to whose memory this work is dedicated. They were spiritually close to each other, and shared a similar life story. Both artists were caught between two physical worlds—the traditional Old Russia in the first half of their lives and the Jazz Age of their American exile; behind them lay the well-worn traditions of 19th-century representation and before them lay the radical ways of seeing that would come to define modern art. Both belonged to a cultural oasis from the 19th century, caught adrift in 20th. Both artists enjoyed lives of luxury in Russia and struggled for survival in exile. Both left to the world’s art treasury unique reflections of Romantic artists’ drama in the time of Modernism. Many of Djeneeff’s paintings coincide in mood with Drozdoff’s compositions, especially those depicting nostalgic images of Old Russia. The painter’s artist wife, Olga Djeneeff, kept a Russian art salon in New York where people recall performances by, among others, Rachmaninoff, Prokofieff and Drozdoff himself.

Drozdoff’s title Elegia precisely reflects the spirit and mood of this melancholic musical lament.

- George Borisov (Mike Ford, ed.)