Perception-altering Shostakovich from Serebrennikov and Petrenko

Kirill Serebrennikov's installation for Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony

Vasily Petrenko conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Kirill Serebrennikov's installation for Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony

By Mark Pullinger, 27 April 2025

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“Serebrennikov uses video to enhance what we hear rather than to depict the music itself”

Reviewed at Royal Festival Hall, London on 27 April 2025

Sibelius, Finlandia, symphonic poem for orchestra, Op.26

Weill, Four Walt Whitman Songs

Shostakovich, Symphony no. 7 in C major, "Leningrad" Op.60

Kirill Serebrennikov, Art Director

Ilya Shagalov, Video

Roderick Williams, Baritone

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Vasily Petrenko, Conductor

Korngold and Mahler from Ray Chen, Vasily Petrenko and the RPO

Roy Westbrook, 12th May

Few violin concertos soar from the first bar as Erich Korngold’s does, especially as in Ray Chen's high-wire account at the Royal Albert Hall.

****1

Turangalîla underwhelms at the Southbank’s Multitudes festival

Roy Westbrook, 23rd April

Serious music ill-matched by filmic limitations as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra tackles Messiaen’s epic “symphony” as part of the Southbank’s cross-genre festival.

**111

Edusei’s Beethoven and Rangwanasha’s Strauss thrill at Cadogan Hall

Christopher Woodley, 26th February

Kevin John Edusei, Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra celebrate the joys of a life well-lived – rounded off to the sounds of larks ascending.

****1

Petrenko’s searing Shostakovich overshadows Grosvenor’s Beethoven

Nick Boston, 3rd February

Stylish Beethoven from Benjamin Grosvenor and dramatic Ustvolskaya from Yuriy Yurchuk, but Petrenko and the RPO’s blistering Shostakovich steals the show.

****1

Charisma and colour from Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Philharmonic

Chris Garlick, 7th September

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s BBC Proms matinee proves an ideal opportunity to demonstrate their strengths in a programme of Respighi, Milhaud and Vaughan Williams.

****1

A trio of exiled composers: Petrenko and the RPO at the RFH

David Truslove, 23rd March

Assured performances from the RPO as part of its ongoing “Lights in the Dark” series that brought career correspondences between three markedly different composers.

****1

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Mark Pullinger

Mark has been a Bachtrack editor since 2014. He is also an experienced critic, writing hundreds of reviews for the site, as well as a freelancer writing for other magazines and newspapers. He also writes programme notes and blogs on Substack. Mark has a particular passion for the operas of Verdi as well as Russian and French repertoire. Outside the concert hall and opera house, Mark enjoys cooking and travel and is probably at his happiest let loose in a French patisserie or a Viennese coffee house.

Flight of Icarus: perception-altering Shostakovich from Serebrennikov and Petrenko