Description

Taking its final form in the last year of Mussorgsky’s life, The Capture of Kars is the product of several incarnations. It first appeared in 1872 as ‘The Procession of the Princes and Priests’ from Mlada, a collaborative opera-ballet that was never completed. In 1880 a number of Russian composers were commissioned to provide music to accompany a series of tableaux vivants of the reign of Tsar Alexander II-part of a pageant to be staged in St.Petersburg honouring the 25th anniversary of his coronation. Kars is a small city in the north-east of Turkey on the Armenian border and in its early days Kars had its own dynasty of Armenian rulers. Soon the Ottoman army captured the city but Alexander II was able to conquer Kars. For his part Mussorgsky resurrected the ‘Procession’ from Mlada, substituting a new and appropriately oriental trio and giving it the title, ‘Solemn March’. The march quotes a well-known melody found in Balakirev’s collection of Russian folk songs while the trio is claimed by Rimski-Korsakov to be based on an authentic Kurdish theme. In rendering an imitation of Turkish military music the work has also become to be known as ‘Turkish March’. The pageant was yet another event which became to nothing, but Mussorgsky’s march was completed on February 3, 1880 and soon performed at the Russian Musical Society in October 1880 under yet another title Vzyatiye Karsa (The Capture of Kars) – one of the very few Mussorgsky orchestral works to have gained recognition in its original form.

Files