Review written for the Manchester Evening News 23 February 2015

ST PETERSBURG SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA  Bridgewater Hall

 

I’VE never known a concert change so much in an evening. After a rough and ready opening with very little of distinction about it, the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra ended their programme at the Bridgewater Hall with a splendid performance and roars of approval.

With two encores provided by conductor and artistic director Alexander Dmitriev taking them past 10pm, it was also good value for money. They are not, of course, the St Petersburg Philharmonic – which some say is the finest orchestra in the world – but at their best they can run them a pretty impressive second. 

This is the orchestra whose history includes the heroic performance of Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ symphony at the height of their city’s desperate siege during the Second World War, and Rachmaninov’s second symphony, which brought an ovation, is their birthright, too, as it was premiered in St Petersburg. 

But they began their Manchester programme with Sibelius: the popular, three-movement Karelia Suite. It was bold and brash, with the typically Russian sound balance of dark, rich bass notes and bright wind and brass tone, but came over as strident and piercing some of the time. The Alla Marcia was like a foreign national anthem blasted out unsympathetically in some athletic contest’s medal ceremony. 

It was followed by Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, with three top-class soloists: violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, cellist Natalie Clein and pianist Freddy Kempf. The latter are two of Britain’s finest musicians today, and the three clearly gelled together, taking the music by the scruff of the neck and injecting fun and life into it even when the Russians seemed hesitant to do so. There were subtle rhythmic emphases from Kempf, and the cello solo of the slow movement was pure delight. 

But then the 80-year-old maestro and his orchestra got to home territory with Rachmaninov. The bravura and over-emphasis we’d heard before transformed into a performance that was heartfelt, assured, fluent, idiomatic and appealing. This music really is their native breath (rather as Elgar’s first – written, incidentally at the same time – is ours), and they know exactly how it works. 

Their strings rejoiced in the soaring melodies and rich harmonic textures, the wind solos were beautiful, and the third movement reached a seriously powerful emotional climax. It was full steam ahead to the finale’s last pages, and a deserved ovation, in which the musicians seemed as keen to applaud their conductor as we them. 

****

Robert Beale