Music traditions of Petersburg suburb revived

On Saturday, July 6th, the roses pavilion of the Pavlovsk state palace and park museum, the former countryside residence of Russian emperors in the outskirts of St. Petersburg will host the opening of the 1st music festival Grand Waltz in Pavlovsk. The festival will be marking the 225th anniversary of the town and the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg.

The spokesman for the museum, Anna Zabelskaya, told RIA Novosti that the festival would gather the Chamber Orchestra of the Petersburg Philharmonia, the Orchestra of the Modest Musorgsky /a Russian composer, 1839-1881/ Opera and Ballet Theatre, soloists of the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet Theatre (Petersburg) and many other leading groups and soloists from Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The participants will perform music by the "king of Vienna waltzes", Johann Strauss, his contemporaries and followers. Eduard Strauss, the head of the Vienna Society for Studying the Artistic Heritage of Johann Strauss, will be a guest of honour at the festival.

The organisers of the Grand Waltz in Pavlovsk festival intend to revive music traditions of the Petersburg suburb, which is world-known for its Music Railway Station. The Pavlovsk Railway Station building, which used to be called a rest hall, was erected in the palace park in the middle of the 19th century and was designed to house a booking office, a waiting room, a restaurant, a garden with fountains and a large 100-seat concert hall.

The orchestra conducted by Johann Strauss gave concerts in this summer concert hall for 10 seasons, from 1856 till 1866. Fyodor Shalyapin sang here too. Music parties in the concert hall of the Pavlovsk Railway Station were held for more than a century, while the concert hall itself was called "Russia's first philharmonia".