Artiste: Igor Tchetuev

Ferruccio Furlanetto, dressed in black, stands in the curve of the piano behind him, silhouetted again a blood red, velvet curtain. He raises his head at the opening piano tones and begins to sing. The audience is immediately enveloped in the kind of warm bass voice that seems to wrap itself around you like the perfect eiderdown; not too heavy and not too light, well positioned and unstrained.

For this concert the Prague Symphony Orchestra brought their classical music heritage overseas to Colston Hall. The programme gave us a taste of composers close to the orchestra’s homeland, providing a delightful evening of luxury – in music and in dress code.

I had high expectations for the evening after being very impressed with an MSSO performance I had seen as a teenager. The first piece on the programme was the Polovtsian Dances from Borodin’s opera, Prince Igor. The performance highlighted both the playful and brutal elements of the piece which made for an exciting performance.