08 june 2025 The Flora Hall Was Too Small For The Audience On Sunday

The chamber concert AN EVENING OF THE GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN MUSIC tonight in one of the exquisite halls of the Flora Burgas Exhibition Center proved that a program prepared with thought, concept, taste, attitude, talent and intellect could fill the space to the limit - even with standing room only, and show that the intimate sharing of musical art has its undoubted place in cultural life, in addition to large-scale events.
The concert began with performances by Natalia Sultanova - violin and Sergei Sultanov - piano, who presented several works by German and Austrian composers, emotionally and with an excellently balanced sound. They performed:
"Ave Maria" by Bach/Gounod - together with Maria Yurkovskaya,
"Album Sheet" by Richard Wagner, "Minuet and Joke" and "Prelude" by Johann Sebastian Bach, Waltz "The Sorrows of Love" by Friedrich-Max Kreisler, "Contemplation" by Johannes Brahms, "Romance" in F major by Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata in E minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, "Rondo" by Carl Maria von Weber, "Serenade" by Franz Schubert.
In the second part of the chamber concert, the song cycle by Gustav Mahler "Song for the Dead Children"
- "Kindertotenlieder" was performed with the following parts: "Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n", "Nun seh’ ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen", "Wenn dein Mütterlein tritt zur Tür herein", "Oft denk’ ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen", "In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus"
.

The songs were created as a brilliant musical‐psychoanalytical‐philosophical treatise about the five stages through which the human psyche goes through the experience of loss, from insignificant to all-consuming, such as the loss of a child.
The complex transformation of feelings and deep experiences, as well as the states of mind characteristic of each of the stages, were conveyed - subtly, deeply, with respect, skillful handling of musical symbolism, the impact of tone - in the various muted nuances, both in voice and on piano, and in the bursting painful cries of the soul, and in the irreconcilability, as well as in the moment of the "deal" with Fate, which is inexorable and carries a reconciliation sadness, in which a person looks around in the well of pain and sees the immense field of depression, after which comes - like a light breeze, the consolation and reconciliation with the fateful inexorability. For a soul, blackened by the burden of loss, to realize that there is a way forward, through the swamp of sorrow, through the swampy shades of despair. Despite.
It is this evolution of human suffering - from shock, anger, denial, irreconcilability, depression, and quiet resignation - that was brilliantly presented by mezzo-soprano Maria Yurkovskaya and pianist Iliana Todorova.
She does not hide her bias towards Mahler's song cycle.
"Mahler reflects the evolution of feelings and perceptions through tonal transitions, rhythmic solutions, dynamic heights and abysses, as well as through the symbolic messages of Rückert's text. This makes the cycle not only a musical achievement, but also a philosophical meditation on life, death, and love," she reflects.
Congratulations on the idea and brilliant realization of the chamber concert "Evening of German and Austrian Music", part of the June program of the Burgas State Opera!
The event was honored with a bouquet on behalf of the Mayor of Burgas Municipality, Mr. Dimitar Nikolov.