Gennady Rozhdestvensky

Born to conductor Nikolai Anosov Rozhdestvensky and soprano Natalya Rozhdestvenskaya, Rozhdestvensky received early training as a pupil at both the Gnesin School of Music and the children’s division of the Moscow Conservatory. He began formal studies at the Conservatory itself in 1941, taking conducting lessons from his father and piano instruction from Lev Oborin. Still a student, he led a Bolshoi Theater production of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker. After receiving his diploma in 1954 he joined the Bolshoi as assistant conductor; two years later the company’s ballet tour gave him his initial opportunity to work in England. In 1961 he assumed the artistic directorship of the Soviet Radio Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1974. Three years into that tenure he was named the Bolshoi’s youngest principal conductor, serving until 1970. Throughout the Soviet period he introduced foreign contemporary scores that distanced him from official circles, yet his authority at the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra enabled him to present Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and music by Poulenc, Hindemith, and Orff previously unheard by Soviet listeners. He also restored to the repertoire the symphonies of Sergey Prokofiev, whose American residence from 1918 to 1936 had rendered him suspect at home. Only the most prominent Soviet artists received permission for wide international travel; Rozhdestvensky therefore appeared across Europe, the United States, and Japan, returning repeatedly to Britain for engagements with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and at Covent Garden. In 1971 he directed the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in three Promenade Concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall. The next year he became music director of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. Between 1974 and 1977 he served as artistic director of the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, then moved to the BBC Symphony Orchestra as principal conductor from 1978 to 1981. He next led the Vienna Symphony Orchestra until 1983. In 1982 he established the State Symphony Orchestra of the Ministry of Culture in Moscow and became its chief conductor. Teaching appointments followed in 1987 at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. The Stockholm Philharmonic re-engaged him in 1991, and three years afterward he was named chairman of the Bolshoi’s artistic committee. His commitment to adventurous programming remained evident in both concerts and recordings. Renowned for lucid, well-proportioned readings of Romantic and twentieth-century scores, he introduced Denisov’s Symphony for two string orchestras and percussion (dedicated to him), Buzko’s White Nights, Shchedrin’s Carmen Suite, Prokofiev’s opera The Gambler, Schnittke’s Symphony No. 2 “St. Florian,” and Gerhard’s Don Quixote. He further championed music by Kancheli, Mirzoian, Organesian, and Skoryk. Among his publications are Techniques of Orchestral Direction and Reflections on Music. He was married to pianist Viktoria Postnikova.