There’s a veritable Russian invasion of Coventry imminent if Warwick Arts Centre’s season is anything to go by, with an attractive line up of Russian music and a couple of Russian orchestras. Leading the cossack charge was the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, one of Moscow’s longest-established orchestras. Under conductor Denis Lotoev, it tackled one of the greatest Russian symphonies in the repertoire: Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, a dark work, premiered just nine days before the composer’s death ; followed by Sibelius’s Violin Concerto (the “Grand Duchy of Finland” was then part of Russian Empire) whose third movement – described once by Donald Tovey as a “polonaise for polar bears” – is a rollicking finale, throwing down the gauntlet to the soloist Jennifer Pike, 2002 winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year, who accepted the challenge.
For those who couldn’t make it to this concert, wait for the end of the season to hear the other Russian orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic. Formed in 1951, the orchestra was for decades associated with legendary conductor Kirill Kondrashin and together they premiered several Shostakovich works, including the controversial Fourth Symphony. Shostakovich is on the bill at the Warwick Arts Centre in the form of the Festive Overture. It is joined by a couple of great Russian warhorses – Rachmaninov’s titanic Third Piano Concerto, featuring former BBC Young Musician of the Year Freddy Kempf, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The latter was inspired by the works of artist Viktor Hartmann, Mussorgsky depicting ten paintings or drawings, ending with the epic “Great Gate of Kiev”, based on a design for a monumental gate to commemorate Tsar Alexander II's narrow escape from an assassination attempt in 1866. Hartmann’s design won a national competition, but the gate was never built. Musically, “The Great Gate of Kiev” is a bombastic explosion of sound, dominated by crashing percussion – a perfect way to end a concert!
Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky are concert hall favourites and it is no surprise that they feature strongly in the season. Christoph König conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Rachmaninov’s romantic Second Symphony. Listen out for the gorgeous opening to the third movement Adagio – one of the great clarinet solos in the entire orchestral repertoire – and the dashing second movement, like a glittering troika ride through a Russian winter. The RPO is joined by popular violinist Tasmin Little for Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto no. 1. More Rachmaninov comes courtesy of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and pianist Stephen Hough, who tackles the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, a work full of devilish detail and tricksy variations on Paganini’s most famous violin caprice. Each of the 24 variations are short, but jewel-like, the 18th a beloved pearl of the piano repertoire.