Nikolai Golovanov

 

Nikolai Golovanov was a terrific conductor whose recordings of Wagner overtures and preludes is astonishing. It is a bit like having a Russian army artillery regiment in your sitting room, such is the unrelenting power of the brass and general force of approach. Wikipedia puts it thus;

Based upon the evidence of his recordings, Golovanov's characteristic performance mode was full-blooded and nearly vehement in tone, with a powerful, almost overloaded sense of sonority, and extreme flexibility in matters of tempo, phrasing and dynamics. Others have characterised his approach as heavily controlling after the manner of Toscanini, excessively wayward in the way he often ignored the markings in the written score to suit his own inflated sense of musical importance, and generally self-indulgent in the extreme. The timing of the orchestral ensemble often suffered in trying to keep up with his inconsistent and demanding beat.

Maybe, but certainly exciting.

As Chief Conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre he received the young Gennady Rozhdestvensky in his office having been chosen in a competition to work as an assistant at the Bolschoi. Rozhdestvensky describes Golovanov as being a frightening apparition with eyebrows arched as if in charcoal like Mefistopheles. Golovanov set the young Rozhdestvensky to work repairing orchestral parts which had become tatty with use over many years. He did this for a month after which Golovanov called him into his office again and asked what he had done. Rozhdestvensky replied that he had repaired 150 parts. Golovanov seemed satisfied with this and then ordered him to assist and observe Feyer, the conductor of the ballet. Feyer told him to stand behind him and imitate his gestures. Rozhdestvensky says he stood behind him but did not imitate the gestures. He said he learned a lot nonetheless.

So Golovanov can be said to have set Rozhdestvensky - himself a future Chief Conductor at the theatre (in fact three times chief conductor) on his way.

Golovanov fell foul of Stalin for some undisclosed reason and was dimissed in 1952. He died a year later at the age of 62.