Work: Piano Concerto in D flat major, Op.38

Rare Russian repertoire fails to catch fire, despite the best efforts of Osmo Vänskä and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

The programme notes suggested that Glinka was the father of Russian nationalism. Perhaps this is the case, but his overture to his second opera, Ruslan and Ludmilla, is undeniably an Italianate work, surely influenced by his meetings with Donizetti and Bellini in 1830.