SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Rachmaninov; Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor. Op. 18

Rimsky-Korsakov; Scheherazade, Op. 35

At the end of Scheherazade, with the sustained bass chords and solo violin dying down to a pp ending (like Schererazade herself) I was left thinking what a wonderful score this is, not least for its superb orchestration. Of course it is, in some respects an old warhorse, and initially I was wondering why I had elected to go to such a 'popular' concert in the first place? The attraction was the Moscow orchestra since there is still nothing quite like hearing quintessentially 'Russian' music played by Russian musicians.

And on that score,we heard much resplendent playing tonight. I was brought up on the classic recordings from the likes of Monteux and Beecham, which still sound very fine, but there was something special about tonight’s performance. Both for playing and conducting, Pavel Kogan is a well known name in Russia and Eastern Europe, although he conducts in London quite infrequently. He has an excellent musical background, his father being the legendary violinist Leonid Kogan, and his uncle the great Russian pianist Emil Gilels. Tonight he emphasised the 'symphonic' aspects of Scheherazade and the composer himself called it a 'Symphonic Suite. So we heard sustained tempi, and an overall sense of the music unfolding as an interlinking thematic structure. Kogan did not de-emphasise the superb sonorities, and 'colours' of the score; if anything the exotic aspects of the orchestration sounded more, not less convincing, taken as a coherent whole. Many conductors, both good and not so good, have been tempted to make Scheherazade sound like an orchestral show-piece but here was much more than superficial orchestral opulence. The opening movement depicting the sea and Sinbad's Ship had a developing surging power, with no lingering over specific detail yet with each section of the orchestra listening responsively to the others. The brass section have an edge, and the horns particularly, although emcompassing a wide tonal range, project that inimitable and plangent Russian vibrato so hated by some Western music critics. The percussion section has a rhythmic precision, but they also found rhythmic diversity and contrast in the underlying rhythmic patterns of the second movement 'Kalendar Prince'. In the sudden thrust into C sharp minor in the basses, and the brass fanfares intoning the Sultan's theme I could clearly hear the kind of orchestral drama which inspired the young Stravinsky, particularly in works like the 'Firebird'. And what a wonderfully grainy bassoon tone there was here depicting the 'Kalendar Prince's' theme!

Pavel Kogan built a tremendous climax in the last movement depicting the storm and shipwreck but it always sounded musical; never loud for the sake of being loud. Of particular excellence here were the rich, but sustained sonority from the celli, and the wonderfully clear, but contrasted balance between woodwind and strings so that woodwind details were clearly audible in tutti climaxes.. The orchestra’s leader Gayk Kazazyan played the solo Scheherazade parts with poise and even a touch of sensuality- quite fitting in a tale which depicts Scheherazade using the seduction of discourse. With narrative deferring her impending death, her life is ultimately redeemed by language.

Scheherazade was preceded by a most compelling reading of Rachmaninov's most popular piano concerto, No. 2, in C minor. In the famous ascending opening chords in C sharp minor for solo piano, the Ukrainian Igor Tchetchuev didn't quite evoke the sonority of a Richter, but throughout the concerto he was never less than convincing with his attention to the work’s tonal contrast and moments of taxing virtuosity - never sounding virtuosic for its own sake - but fully integrated into dialogue with the orchestra. The second movement’s shift from C minor to E major was particularly well handled and the sense of total accord between conductor and soloist made every nuance all the more poignant and convincing. In the last movement I don't think I have ever heard the transition triplet theme with solo piano and hushed cymbal strokes projected with such tonal finesse. The accompanying sustained C sharp minor figure in the basses, with its declension into an even more remote variant of the key was wonderfully coherent tonight. The famous big tune, so admired in Hollywood, sounded more elegaic - even quasi - stoical manner and omitted all the rhetorical saccharine which can often be quite unbearable. Both soloist and conductor brought the concerto to its brilliant ending with meticulous timing and brio.

The concert opened with a brilliant rendition of the Polovtsian Dances, taken from the second act of Borodin's opera Prince Igor. When played the kind of sustained sense of drama and operatic contrast heard tonight, I always want to hear the complete opera; a real Russian operatic masterpiece all too rarely heard even today. As an encore, Pavel Kogan gave us a brilliantly swift, but affecting account of the first Slavonic Dance from Dvorak's later Opus 72 set in B major.

Geoff Diggines