Last week, on a hot, sunny day in Pavlovsk, the former Russian imperial residence, an orchestra played Strauss waltzes in front of the former imperial palace. The occasion commemorated the opening of a concert hall, the vokzal, in 1838. This new Russian word is a phonetic derivative of Vauxcorridor, a public park in London where other people can simply laugh and pay attention to the music. The concert corridor attached to the Pavlovsk station of the first Russian railway connecting the capital St. Petersburg with the imperial summer residence.
The concert hall was designed as an integral part of the station, and the new word came to refer to any station. Few Russians know the musical composition of this common word. The idea was to attract consumers to the new means of transport. The Prague engineer Franz Anton Ritter von Gerstner (1796-1840) proposed “to build a new Tivoli at the terminal. A beautiful vokzal would serve as a meeting place for the population of the capital, in summer and winter; games and dances, new fresh air and a sumptuous dining room would appeal to all. “In fact, the status quo included a gourmet restaurant, spacious halls, and of course, a large concert hall with panoramic windows.
A few decades later, a theater was added, hosting up to thirty opera and ballet performances during the summer season. In 1880, the vokzal acquired an 80-piece orchestra. In its first seventy-five years of existence, the vokzal hosted more than a thousand performances, adding six hundred symphonic concerts. The repertoire was incredibly varied, from classical music to folk dance, from gypsy songs to folk music. In 1841, for example, the vokzal hosted a group of about 40 dancers from the Basque Country dressed in classical costumes.
This summer’s commemorative concert, conducted by Italian maestro Fabio Mastrangelo, embodied the biological connections between Russian culture and Europe. I recently wrote about the country’s reorientation of its economic and political ties with Asia. But this change, forced through Western sanctions since 2014, has not yet affected culture. It is true that the West has tried to “cancel” Russian music and literature. Russian music was removed from the program and prominent Russian directors and opera singers had their contracts terminated through their Western businessmen. The ancient struggle between “good” and “evil” has spilled over into culture. But no similar steps have been taken in Russia to end its association with European culture.
In more than a century of existence, the Pavlovsk vokzal has attracted prominent artists from Russia and the rest of Europe, including Johann Strauss Jr. (1825-1899), musical director of the vokzal for more than a century. ten years. The prominent Russian dancer Anna Pavlova (1881-1931) conducted in Pavlovsk on the eve of her emigration in 1914. The first concert after the socialist revolution took place in 1918. The culture continued, although with one change: from now on, the Russians of All courses were welcome.
The Pavlovsk Vokzal was destroyed by the Nazi profession from 1941 to 1944. Spanish Blue Division volunteers made up the bulk of the European troops stationed in Pavlovsk. German groups only went there for special tasks, such as the bloodbath of the local Jewish population (A stele was erected in the park at the site of this execution).
This summer’s concert was intended to mark the beginning of a renaissance. Russian Railways (RZhD) sponsored the concert announcing the reconstruction of the Pavlovk Vokzal, which is scheduled to open in 2027 on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the founding of Pavlovsk. The town was a gift from Catherine II to her son, who would become Emperor Paul (Pavel in Russian). Hence the name Pavlovsk.
Not far from the park where the concert took place is a bronze statue of Johann Strauss playing the violin. In front of the St. Petersburg terminal, we notice the sublime silhouette of von Gerstner holding a model of the first locomotive that carried passengers to the Pavlovsk vokzal. Hence the probable incongruous arrangement of the music and the locomotives.
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