Beethoven’s Ninth and “April 1876” (November 1980 – March 1981)

At the first rehearsal after the tour, on 30 October 1980, Chonev set out the tasks leading up to the anniversary: in January 1981, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Varna Philharmonic under Ivan Marinov, Honoured Artist; on 3 March, Milko Kolarov’s oratorio “April 1876” in Shumen, for the 1300th anniversary of the Bulgarian state; on 25 April, a concert of its own in the Bulgaria Hall in Sofia as part of the Panorama of Bulgarian Choral Performance; a concert for the choir’s 25th anniversary; the Ninth and Verdi’s Requiem with a view to a foreign tour with the Varna Symphony Orchestra in September; recordings of the old repertoire; and concerts in Provadia and for the Morski Zvutsi choral society.

On 29 November 1980, in the packed House of Amateur Arts, the choir sang together with the Varna Boys’ Choir; Anna Varbanova was at the piano, and the chamber choir was conducted by Rositsa Shtereva, whom Chonev increasingly let work on her own. The Provadia concert, moved to 12 December, was finally cancelled by the hosts, who could not find an audience in the cold weather – and the singers reproached the board for singing so rarely in the district. The board dealt with everyday matters – fees, requests for leave and release, the design of the women’s dresses – and on 27 December the choir held a New Year party in its hall; by old tradition, gifts went to newly-weds and to singers who had become mothers that year.

From 5 January 1981 the choir rehearsed three times a week. Chonev proposed moving the anniversary to the autumn, since Anna Trichkova was pressing the choir to sing Al. Raychev’s oratorio “White, Green, Red” at the May Choral Competition, and Ivan Marinov wanted performances of the Ninth in Varna and Razgrad. Ivanka Hristova reported an invitation, through diplomatic channels, to Aalborg and Copenhagen in Denmark, together with the Symphony Orchestra and the Puppet Theatre. Marinov, however, wanted a choir of 80, which meant another round of “sifting”. The Ninth Symphony was performed on 30 January 1981 in the Palace of Culture and Sports with the soloists Yuliya Viner (People’s Artist), Rositsa Troeva, Stefan Dishliev and Dimitar Barev.

From 15 January the administrator Bogomil Korbakov was on sick leave. A chorister, Valeri Kinov, took over his job but gave up after two weeks, and Stoyan Boychev was appointed treasurer for a token fee. An attempt to form volunteer teams to sort the choir’s archive soon fizzled out; Boychev alone spent months tracking down, classifying and listing the piles of music that had accumulated in various places over the years, while the conductor Rositsa Shtereva sorted the scores he set aside.

On 27 February Marinov held his first rehearsal of “April 1876” with the composer present, and on 2 March a joint rehearsal with the Varna Symphony Orchestra, with the soloist Vesela Zorova and the narrator Boris Lukanov, Honoured Artist. A concert in Sofia for the Varna district’s amateur arts festival on 7 March was, luckily, called off. On 4 March the choir and orchestra performed at the D. Voynikov community centre in Shumen (the singers spent the night in Novi Pazar and Kaspichan), on 5 March in the theatre in Razgrad and on 6 March in the House of Amateur Arts in Varna – the best of the three, in the view of experts. On 27 March 1981 the oratorio was performed again for the delegates of the 12th Congress of the Bulgarian Communist Party. After that, attendance slipped and the new anniversary repertoire was slow to take shape.