January 30 a literary and music salon opened at the Russian Center of the German-Russian Institute of Culture in Dresden.
A pianist Olga Bobrovnikova, who lives in Brussels and gives concerts in different countries, told the audience about a composer and teacher of Moscow Conservatory Pavel Pabst (1854–1897), who is little known to the modern audience. Olga Bobrovnikova decided to rescue the composer’s name from oblivion, and it took her quite a time to collect information on his life and work in various countries. As a result, she discovered photographs, documents, and manuscripts in Moscow, Paris, London, New York and Dresden.
Prior to the concert Olga showed the audience historical films and photographs reflecting the composer’s life and played a number of music records, one of which was made in Kiev in 1874 during Pavel Pabst and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s meeting.
During a second part of the concert Olga Bobrovnikova played Pavel Pabst’s music, including pieces of the Concert for Piano and Orchestra created for the coronation ceremony of Alexander III (1882), which was originally performed by an outstanding pianist Anton Rubinstein.
Inspired by the research, Olga Bobrovnikova wrote a book about Pavel Pabst, and presented one copy to the German-Russian Institute of Culture in Dresden.
The pianist donated her performance fee to her charity organization ”MuSic”, which supports multilocular sclerosis.
The concert of the Russian pianist marked an input of the Russian Center and the German-Russian Institute of Culture into the ongoing projects Russian Footprints in Dresden and Saxons in Russia.
