Prom 70: Tchaikovsky/Rachmaninov/Rimsky-Korsakov (7.09.15)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30
Royal Albert Hall

Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini
Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade

Nikolai Lugansky (piano)
St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Yuri Temirkanov (conductor)

Just over a decade since their most recent visit, the St Petersburg Philharmonic and its renowned Artistic Director and Chief Conductor, Yuri Temirkanov, return to the Proms with a homegrown programme of Russian greats. Pianist Nikolai Lugansky is the soloist in Rachmaninov's most famous work, the Second Piano Concerto, with its lyrical slow movement and brilliant, virtuosic finale. Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade dissolves the magic and colour of the tales of the Thousand and One Nights into a glittering musical tapestry that the composer himself described as 'an oriental narrative of fairy-tale wonders'. Tchaikovsky's swirling tone-poem of doomed lovers opens the programme.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Although still the fine orchestra it was in the Leningrad days, the sound seems to have become more "western" in recent years.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Francesca da Rimini is in many ways Tchaikovsky at his finest - superb orchestration, structurally concise and mingling drama with subtlety.

[mrbouffant]

Francesca da Rimini is in many ways Tchaikovsky at his finest - superb orchestration, structurally concise and mingling drama with subtlety.

Concise at c.25 minutes?.... It's hardly Webernesque in its brevity ;-)

[Bax-of-Delights]

Concise at c.25 minutes?.... It's hardly Webernesque in its brevity ;-)

The Proms website puts it at 18 minutes and Stokowski (my favourite interpreter) did it just under 19.

I shall be there this evening.

[mrbouffant]

The Proms website puts it at 18 minutes and Stokowski (my favourite interpreter) did it just under 19.

I shall be there this evening.

I shall be there too.

Interestingly the recording I have been listening to mostly (Bernard Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw) comes in at 24' 37". Sedate.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Proms website puts it at 18 minutes and Stokowski (my favourite interpreter) did it just under 19.

Markevitch takes over 23 minutes. That is slow!

[Darkbloom]

Although still the fine orchestra it was in the Leningrad days, the sound seems to have become more "western" in recent years.

No horn wobble these days? I haven't heard them at all since the recordings with Mravinsky, where they play like absolute demons. It's one of those pairings where you feel, intellectually, that he puts it all on too tight a leash but the results are so blistering that you can't be anything but awed by it. A part of me still wishes they were called the Leningrad (not that it would make much sense) because just the name of that orchestra gives me the chills. It's hard to hear his Tchaikovsky 4 and then turn anyone else's and not feel slightly disappointed.

[Barbirollians]

A very unadventurous programme although Scheherazade does not seem to appear in the concert hall as often as it once did . Shame we could not have had a Medtner concerto for example .

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A very unadventurous programme although Scheherazade does not seem to appear in the concert hall as often as it once did . Shame we could not have had a Medtner concerto for example .

Oh, but Barbi - I cannot see how as a programme it does not represent many (OK, "three") of the finest works in the repertoire played by [an]orchestra[] of the highest rank with [a] top class soloist[] and conductor[]. Not a single fart nor e'er a raspberry on offer.

[Barbirollians]

I said Medtner not Lachenmann !

[teamsaint]

Has Termikanov repented of his sexism sins, at all ?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I said Medtner not Lachenmann !

(But did you Medtner say it?


Medtner ... meant to ...





Anyone seen my coat?)

[teamsaint]

(But did you Medtner say it?


Medtner ... meant to ...





Anyone seen my coat?)

Are you worried that the quality of your pun was Lachen,mann ?

groan, also seasonal outer garment requiring collection.....

[Keraulophone]

A part of me still wishes they were called the Leningrad (not that it would make much sense) because just the name of that orchestra gives me the chills. It's hard to hear his Tchaikovsky 4 and then turn anyone else's and not feel slightly disappointed.

I also have had the same two thoughts. One gets the impression in those staggering '50s/'60s recordings that a wrong note or entry might result in the player being exiled to deepest Siberia. The Leningrad Phil story that moves me the most was the occasion of a rehearsal performance that he felt to have been so perfect that Mravinsky cancelled the concert, believing that it was not possible to repeat it to the same standard that evening. I hope Temirkanov doesn't do that (today or tomorrow - I'll be at both)!