NEW YORK | LOS ANGELES

Russian National Orchestra

US Tour Critical Acclaim

US Tour 2010 Critical Acclaim

“The second half of the program was a single work, the Symphony No. 9 by Shostakovich, written at the conclusion of World War II. The full orchestra sounded like it had spent a lifetime with our acoustics.

From the witty skipping feel of the first movement to the meandering puzzle of the fifth, the orchestra showed

discipline and verve throughout this fascinating, twisting piece. The calls for an encore were quite deserved.” Seattle Times (February 2010)

“They’re still great.” Los Angeles Times (February 2010)

“Stefan Jackiw, a 24-year-old violinist from Boston, was soloist in Tchaikovsky’s concerto. He has been hyped as the next sensation…. He has a striking, percussive technique. He could be a rock star. And he tears into

Tchaikovsky like a rock star might if a rock star could.”

Los Angeles Times (February 2010)

“Summers had good control of this group. Unison playing was really remarkable, especially by the strings, and

Summers' precise wind and brass voice leading helped clarify the sound even more…. [The orchestra’s] playing was beautifully precise. It made the music's scoring and architecture easy to enjoy.”

Kansas City Star (February 2010)

“The Russian National Orchestra's appearance two years ago in the Newman Center Presents series ranks among

Denver's classical highlights of that season and, indeed, the entire decade.

Memories of that concert, along with the ensemble's ranking in December 2008 by Gramophone Magazine as the

world's 15th greatest orchestra, led to ample anticipation of its return engagement Wednesday in Gates Concert

Hall.

American guest conductor Patrick Summers, music director of the Houston Grand Opera, took the podium

Wednesday…. Summers conveyed the overall power and sweep of the evening's culminating work, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36. He invested the long opening movement with the requisite

moodiness and tension…” Denver Post (February 2010)

“Favoring brisk tempos, Summers drew exciting playing from the orchestra, the intonation and perfect execution of the exposed horn parts a standout. Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture was an apt curtain-raiser to the Emperor,

Summers leading a muscular but blatant and unsubtle performance.

The Russian orchestra’s strings have the deep sonority and heft of a great pipe organ while the winds are solid and

distinctive, unmarred by the heavy vibrato that plagued Russian orchestras in the past. With brass that can be

alternately brilliant or mellow, this is an orchestra that can turn on a dime.” South Florida Classical Review (March 2010)

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Critical Acclaim US Tours

page 2 of 5

“The Russian National Orchestra, an independent ensemble, not state-owned, brought enormous skill and

excitement to the Van Wezel on Friday evening, demonstrating again the power of musical energy in the hands of

highly motivated musicians. Under the athletic leadership of their American guest conductor, Patrick Summers, music director of the Houston

Grand Opera, and belying their moderate size by today's standards, the orchestra produced sound of impressive

power and solidity, transparent and beautifully balanced from top to bottom.” Sarasota Herald Tribune (March 2010)

US Tour 2008 Critical Acclaim

"Festival of the Arts Boca ended its celebrity-studded, 17-day series of cultural events Sunday with a concert that

would be tough to beat for sheer sonic pleasure... The Russian National Orchestra sounded as brilliant as ever, assured and musically on the money, even in such thoroughly American works as Copland's Fanfare for the

Common Man, Rodgers' Carousel Waltz and John Kander's Chicago Suite (which at points required the musicians

to put down their instruments and whistle, which the Russians did gamely.)" — South Florida Sun-Sentinel (March 2008)

"The classical portion of the second annual Festival of the Arts Boca got under way Saturday with the vibrant and

technically dazzling Russian National Orchestra, conducted by Claus Peter Flor and featuring pianist Lang Lang. [The concert] was marked by stirring, forceful yet consistently melodic performances... The overture to Glinka's

Ruslan and Lyudmila.... was remarkable for its precision and clarity, the strings with a deeply burnished sheen.

Flor smoothly integrated winds and brasses into the developing patina.... The concert concluded with Beethoven's ambitious Symphony No. 7 in A Major, full of swirling rhythms. Flor led the Russian National Orchestra through

a close-knit performance by turns aggressive, playful and freewheeling, flecked at its fringes with majesty."

— South Florida Sun-Sentinel (March 2008)

"[Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4] has rarely sounded more brilliant. The strings played with knife-edge intensity,

and the first-movement climax, where the main theme returns in the upper registers of the violins, came with

shattering power." — Sun-Sentinel (March 2008)

Russian National Orchestra gives stellar performance "The internationalization of music training and orchestra personnel has supposedly led to an erosion of indigenous

qualities to the world's orchestras. One wouldn't know it from the remarkable showing of the Russian National

Orchestra on Thursday. Now in its 18th season, the RNO continues to hold its place as one of the finest of the

teeming multitude of Russian orchestras -- if not the very finest of all. The brilliance and tonal gleam of the strings, refinement and character of the woodwinds and blazing power of the brass were staggering, even in an era

of globally polished playing. Under [Claus Peter] Flor's baton, the Russian National Orchestra ensemble gave

such richly idiomatic and naturally eloquent performances of Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky, one was almost tempted to call them definitive. …the magnificent playing and rich pallette of colors felt so effortlessly right that

they almost seemed a mere extension of Tchaikovsky's score... "

— Miami Herald (March 2008)

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Critical Acclaim US Tours

page 3 of 5

Russian National Orchestra played with power and brilliance "... In the early 1990s... the newly created Russian National Orchestra established itself as one of the world's great

symphonic ensembles.... Rarely will you hear such a powerful performance of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony. Under [Claus Peter] Flor's baton, the work spanned a vast range of emotions and colors, achieved with the

gleaming power of the orchestra's world-class musicians. The first movement built slowly, as Flor drew more and

more power from the orchestra, until the movement reached its shattering climax in strings and brass, where

textures remained crystal clear despite the immense richness of sound. There were moments... when the orchestra really seemed like a brilliantly coordinated assemblage of virtuosi. "

— South Florida Sun-Sentinel (March 2008)

In Precise Movements, a Russian Sense of Drama

"...from a New Yorker’s perspective, [Vladimir Jurowski's] relationship with this Russian orchestra seems

particularly strong.... The orchestra... produced a brilliant, assertive sound, suffused with a particularly Russian sense of drama... [In] a hot-blooded, palpably emotional performance of the Tchaikovsky “Pathétique”

Symphony, full of unusual and welcome touches... he drew extraordinary effects from the orchestra, including

swirling string and woodwind figures in the Allegro molto vivace, along with superbly balanced brass playing and

full-throttle percussion." — New York Times (February 2008)

"...the Russian National Orchestra is a very special ensemble indeed... And what a performance Jurowski gave. The orchestra had all the right materials—a lovely even tone for the strings, the plaintive Russian character for

winds, and of course the growling penetrating brass, resembling the bass choir of a Russian Orthodox service... it

was a stunning performance... Jurowski can turn the most familiar music into pure gold. "

— ConcertoNet (February 2008)

Equal Parts Head & Heart

"Jurowski and the Russian National Orchestra made excellent, committed partners... They used head and heart in the right doses... a first-class performance..."

— The New York Sun (February 2008)

Russian orchestra stunning

"...anticipation ran high for Wednesday evening's performance by the Russian National Orchestra... and it did not

disappoint.... This major international orchestra was nothing short of stupendous.... Jurowski maximized the

drama in every shift in mood, texture and tempo, squeezing the most out of even the most easily overlooked transition. There was not a moment of letdown in this performance. Simply put, it was an unforgettable evening."

— Denver Post (February 2008)

"[The RNO] held the sold-out house captive with stirring interpretations that gave this music almost shocking

presence.... The RNO breathed with wavelike sighs, the instrumental choirs blended with the minute care of a

Dutch master mixing pigments.... An epidemic of goose bumps broke out in the perfectly unanimous, sweeping scales of [Pathétique's] first movement, while the musical climaxes were sinewy and slashing, not melodramatic."

— Crosscut (February 2008)

"[Jurowski] drew out sumptuous playing and roof-rattling climaxes in the Pathétique. The mournful sobs of the violins emerged with clarity and force, while the thrilling marchlike third movement pinned listeners to the backs

of their chairs. Cymbal crashes and bass-drum thumps have rarely sounded as vital. "

— Rocky Mountain News (February 2008)

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Critical Acclaim US Tours

page 4 of 5

Russian National Orchestra wows adoring crowd "The Russian National Orchestra served up an afternoon of passionate Russian soul to an adoring crowd Sunday;

even the rare winter sunshine was not enough to make anyone regret their time spent indoors.... " — The Seattle Times (February 2008)

"Vladimir Jurowski... proved to be a musician of distinct taste with a first-class ear, who controls a symphony

orchestra as if it were a single instrument... He was never afraid, in the Tchaikovsky Sixth, for instance, to take a long breath with nothing but silence... the effect was breathtaking... Jurowski is a master of understatement, but he

knows when to fire all the guns...The Tchaikovsky was monumental in scale and range... Rachmaninoff's "The

Isle of the Dead" opened the afternoon concert. Jurowski captured its moody, temperamental quality -- the long, sober phrases that never seemed to end."

— Seattle Post-Intelligencer (February 2008)

"Russia has a long and glorious musical heritage, but one of its greatest ensembles is among the newest: the

Russian National Orchestra. This terrific orchestra, founded in 1990 and supported primarily through private

funding, has won spectacular press and roaring ovations ever since it started touring.... Their lone Seattle

concert... has been one of the most eagerly awaited jewels of the season.... " — Seattle Times (February 2008)

"The Russian National Orchestra [is] one of the world's great orchestras…In this day when it is said that orchestras are losing their national characteristics, the RNO is recognizably Russian in sound. It is a more

luxurious model than the Kirov Orchestra... The basses hold a special place in the sound, a thick, velvety,

booming presence that serves as no mere foundation. The string section in general produces a luscious, juicy, big-

bowed splendor, daintiness be damned. The sinister brass section is balanced by bright and candied woodwinds, often dominated by the flutes, and the timpanist doesn't hold back. It's an orchestra that, not surprisingly, plays

Tchaikovsky well... Slow tempos contained the weakness of defeat, tempo changes and dynamic contrasts were

explosive. The sometimes graceful Allegro con grazia became a last dance. The sometimes festive Allegro molto vivace... became threatening, a display of orchestral power, its inner workings, especially the basses, highlighted.

The outpouring of the final Adagio was a resplendent cry to the skies, the strings bringing an unusually dense,

throbbing richness, the rests held intensely." — Orange County Register (February 2008)

"Everything sounded burnished, soulful, important... The way Jurowski opened the Brahms, he might have been a

maestro of old... Jurowski's Brahms was boomy yet had a pinpoint sting. The 5/4 second movement of the Tchaikovsky was like a Russian bear waltzing — a big, beautiful, cuddly creature who could, at any moment, bite

your head off... [Jurowski] has rabbit-quick reflexes. When he wants to whip up excitement, he can. The third

movement of the "Pathétique" was on fire."

— Los Angeles Times (February 2008)

US Tour 2007

"This hardy, independent orchestra, led by the protean Mikhail Pletnev, plays with that zealous sense of

commitment that has always characterized the best Russian ensembles. " — The New Yorker (March 2007)

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Critical Acclaim US Tours

page 5 of 5

The Sounds of an Orchestra’s Singular Personality

"This is an orchestra that does not strive for lushness, as many American ensembles do, or for a particular

woodwind or string timbre, which is an identifying trait of certain central European orchestras. Instead its sound is remarkably trim and focused, with sharp-edged, virtuosic brass playing as one of its hallmarks but also a polished

string sound and agile woodwind work... The orchestral playing was unimpeachable in the Tchaikovsky and

better than that — virtuosic, dark-hued and almost opulent — in Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, which closed the

concert." — New York Times (March 2007)

Perlman, Jurowski light up Boca night

"Perlman and Jurowski stormed the heavens in a bold Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor. Perlman tore into the famous Bruch with fervor and crystalline playing. So tightly were Perlman and Jurowski linked that they

seemed to have rehearsed specific ideas with care.... Jurowski magnifies every element of a work. He enlarges not

only its breadth, but also its impact on listeners. His specialty seems to be re-outfitting large works [with] a new scope, direction, depth of meaning - even upgraded value - from note one…With the extraordinary Russian

National Orchestra, and especially its woodwind and brass soloists, Jurowski's concepts are realized with passion

and precision. The Russian National Orchestra had already proved itself in past South Florida concerts. But after

the four programs in Boca over the last nine days, it is especially hard to see this group leave." — The Palm Beach Post (March 2007)

A triple musical treat at Boca Raton amphitheater "The Russian National Orchestra produces a distinctive sound. Strings have the sonority and depth of a great

organ and winds glow with color and transparency. The orchestra's principal guest conductor, Vladimir

Jurowski... heated up the chilly evening with a performance of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture

that breathed fire... [In Variations on a Rococo Theme, cellist Nina Kotova’s] incredible richness of tone in the instrument's lower register recalled such distinguished predecessors as Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Shafran and

Natalia Gutman... her final bravura display combined exceptional dexterity with showbiz flair. Jurowski proved a

wonderfully attentive accompanist, spotlighting the score's balletic sweep. Rarely has Tchaikovsky's prominent wind writing... been so beautifully articulated.... [In] her performance of Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 1 in D

minor... the immensely talented Helene Grimaud gave this pianistic symphony a performance of heaven-storming

proportions." — South Florida Sun Sentinel (March 2007)

"Jurowski reframed the great Romeo and Juliet Fantasy by Tchaikovsky. Like a museum-quality restorer, young

Jurowski removed half a century of old tarnish — decades of performance styles that reduced its vision to mere romance — to expose vivid, new colors and dramatic depths rarely ascribed to the Romeo canvas. Guest cellist

Nina Kotova resurveyed the boundaries of the Tchaikovsky Variations on a Rococo Theme. In her redrawn

topographical map... great mountains tower in grand authority; rushing rapids tumble into waterfalls... Each expansive scene shimmered with a pristine beauty."

— Palm Beach Post (March 2007)

"Rarely will an audience hear as brilliant and sumptuous a performance of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3

as the one played Sunday at the Festival of the Arts Boca. Renowned pianist Yefim Bronfman easily conquered

the brutally demanding solo part... In Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra... the Russian players displayed a

fantastic array of colors, from the sinister muted brass to the lustrous violins, playing with laser-like accuracy in the difficult runs and lush melodies. Jurowski gave a weighty, dramatic interpretation that allowed all the details

of the score to come through without any fussiness or loss of musical line. "

— South Florida Sun Sentinel (March 2007)

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

NewsWorks • March 8, 2016

Review: Russian National Orchestra wows Wilmington audience BY CHRISTINE FACCIOLO The Russian National Orchestra wowed classical music aficionados in Wilmington on Friday night when it made a stop at The Grand's Copeland Hall as part of its 25th anniversary world tour. The concert was also a part of The Renaissance Concerts, a pilot program supported by Tatiana and Gerret Copeland to bring internationally acclaimed classical music artists to Wilmington. The inaugural event took place last December with a performance by the superstar trio of violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Evgeny Kissin and cellist Mischa Maisky. The program featured an eclectic mix of the familiar, the not-so-familiar and the dramatic, including Alexander Glazunov's Prelude to the suite "From the Middle Ages" and orchestra Founder and Artistic Director Mikhail Pletnev's arrangement of Sergei Prokofiev's suite from "Romeo and Juliet." Violin soloist Stefan Jackiw joined the orchestra in a performance of Felix Mendelssohn's ever popular Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64. Concert Pianist and Tchaikovsky Competition Winner Pletnev founded the orchestra in 1990 with only individual, foundation and corporate contributions as a way to ensure programming independent of the government. Since then the orchestra has released more than 80 recordings. It became the first Russian music ensemble to play at the Vatican and in Israel. In 2004 it won a Grammy Award—the first for a Russian ensemble—for its recording of Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" and Jean-Pascal Beintus' "Wolf Tracks." This concert was performed under the baton of Ukrainian-born Kirill Karabits who won the United Kingdom's Royal Philharmonic Conductor Award in 2013 and was recently named music director for Germany's Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar. Karabits is a somewhat reserved conductor but one gets the impression he need only lift a finger to obtain the magnificent sound produced by this superb collection of musicians. Opening the concert was the Prelude from Glazunov's suite "From the Middle Ages," a neglected masterpiece full of prime Russian romanticism. Karabits brought out the marvelous detail of the piece which conveys the image of two lovers high on a barren cliff, so lost in each other that they are oblivious to the storm-driven sea below. Glazunov's strength always lay in his ability to draw long, lyrical strokes from his instruments and the

Russian National Orchestra NewsWorks • March 8, 2016 page 2 of 2

orchestra complied, creating a musical arc that rose from a deep bass-driven portent to a most amorous warmth. The somber quality of this piece provided an appropriate introduction to the brooding first movement of Mendelssohn's mid-19th century E minor masterpiece, a multitiered balancing act of Classical grace and Romantic passion. Mendelssohn composed the work for his friend, the distinguished German violinist Ferdinand David. It would become his last large orchestral work. The soloist was Stefan Jackiw, the young Massachusetts Wunderkind who made his professional debut, at the age of 12, in 1997 with the Boston Pops when director Keith Lockhart invited him to perform on opening night - he just had his Carnegie Hall debut on March 2. Dressed in black from head to toe, he cut a stage presence as formidable as his talent. He tore into the impassioned first movement with the blistering intensity of a rock star, yet never lost command of his 1704 Ruggieri violin. The utter precision and rhythmic incisiveness of his playing were stunning. Refreshingly, Jackiw approached the sumptuous slow movement with an elegant poignancy. The fast finale delivered a daring mix of capriciousness and intensity, a combination Jackiw was never in danger of not pulling off. The second half of the concert was devoted to a superb rendition of Prokofiev's suite from "Romeo and Juliet," with movements from all three Suites by Pletnev to create a sequence corresponding to the story. The playing was perfect for Prokofiev: dry and clean, precise and separated. The graphic portrayal that is the "Death of Tybalt" was played with a ferocious energy, while diaphanous strings and enchanting flutes were telling in "The Child Juliet." "Montagues and Capulets" opened the suite with the appropriate swagger and tragic overtones.

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Palm Beach Daily News • March 8, 2016

Review: Russian National Orchestra wows Kravis Center crowd BY MARCIO BEZERRA In music, the Russian revolution happened in the 1860s, when a group of five composers joined forces in search for a national style that would rival the Germanic model then in vogue. In addition to renouncing motivic development as a main structural element and substituting it with a virtuosic approach to orchestration, the so-called Mighty Five favored exotic storylines as background for their compositions. Those colorful and structurally simple works continue to be favored by audiences, as seen at the Kravis Center during Monday’s Russian National Orchestra concert. Directed by the talented guest conductor Kirill Karabits, the group opened the program with Alexander Borodin’s In the Steppes of Central Asia. Typical of the part-time composer’s output, this is a charming work that portrays the exotic corners of the Russian Empire. It was played with lush sound by the orchestra, although the handling of dynamics (especially in the softer passages) could have been done in a more refined way. The orchestra was joined by violinist Stefan Jackiw in a stellar rendition of Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor, Op. 63. The composer’s last European commission before his permanent return to the Soviet Union, the concerto features less of the trademark sarcasm, while nodding to classical structures of the past. It is not a coloristic charmer but rather an introspective work, with dark moments interpolated with virtuosic displays by the soloist. Jackiw and Karabits were formidable partners, delivering a memorable reading. The soloist displayed not only a potent sound (helped here by the masterful orchestration), but an ability to phrase even unconventional phrases with utmost taste. The second part of the program was devoted to a single work, Igor Stravinsky’s The Firebird. An early ballet score, still deeply influenced by the Mighty Five’s love for folk tales and colorful orchestration, the work was performed in the composer’s revision of 1945 (it was originally written in 1910). Apart from a few issues on the handling of softer dynamics, the orchestra’s gave a spectacular rendition. The many soloists featured were one of the ensemble’s strengths, as well as its ability to rock Dreyfoos Hall walls with explosive fortissimos in the Infernal Dance. For the first time this season, the usual standing-walking ovation gave way to a true standing ovation, with many shouts of bravo and requests for an encore. Karabits was generous enough to give two: first the waltz from the Masquerade Suite, followed by the lezginka from the Gayane Ballet, both by Aram Khachaturian. Surely, our local audience loves the Russian Revolution — at least the musical one.

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

The New York Times • March 3, 2016

Review: Russian National Orchestra Plays Borodin and Prokofiev BY JAMES R. OESTREICH New Yorkers could be forgiven for wondering in recent weeks whether the great line of Russian maestros had been reduced to a lone survivor, as Valery Gergiev oversaw The Mariinsky at BAM, a 12-day festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, then led the Vienna Philharmonic in a weekend at Carnegie Hall. Carnegie provided an answer on Wednesday evening, presenting the Russian National Orchestra under Mikhail Pletnev, a conductor of a different stripe. Whereas Mr. Gergiev can seem to be all nervous energy, with waggling fingers and an elusive beat, Mr. Pletnev, an esteemed pianist and the founder and artistic director of the Russian National, is a more phlegmatic sort, a picture of composure and clarity on the podium. And his marvelous orchestra responds with like clarity and precision. The band was in fine shape on Wednesday, midway through the American leg of its 25th-anniversary international tour. The program, opening with Borodin’s “In the Steppes of Central Asia” and ending with Stravinsky’s “Firebird” Suite, was particularly well suited to show off a superb woodwind section, especially the oboist Olga Tomilova and the flutist Maxim Rubtsov. In between came Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, with the stirring young Stefan Jackiw as soloist. Mr. Jackiw, in a program note, charmingly tells of having discovered this concerto in 1999, through the film “Analyze This,” starring Robert De Niro and Billy Crystal. “The most beautiful violin melody soars in the soundtrack” for a wedding scene, Mr. Jackiw writes, but “the ceremony is interrupted by a body falling from an overlooking balcony — an inconveniently timed mob hit.” Still, he was “transfixed by the music.” Whatever it takes. Mr. Jackiw has in any case made the work his own: not only the beautiful melodies but also the skittish passages in which the tunes seem to be morphing and turning themselves inside out. He rendered them all with seeming ease and remarkable purity of tone, qualities he carried into his encore, the Largo from Bach’s Unaccompanied Violin Sonata in C, which he shaped beautifully. Mr. Pletnev and the orchestra also offered encores: the Waltz from Khachaturian’s “Masquerade” Suite and the Dance of the Skomorokhi from Tchaikovsky’s “The Snow Maiden.”

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Palm Beach Daily News March 1, 2013

Russian National Orchestra impresses, from Tchaikovsky to

Rachmaninoff

Concerto in memory of Van Cliburn touching. BY KEN KEATON

The house was packed and enthusiastic when the Russian National Orchestra with pianist Barry Douglas delivered an

all-Russian concert Wednesday as part of the Kravis Center’s Regional Arts Concert Series.

The orchestra is young by world standards, founded in 1990 in Moscow. And conductor Vasily Petrenko is young as

conductors go, born in 1976, but he has amassed an impressive resume. He has been the principal conductor of the

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra since 2006, and his guest appearances, including this one, are frequent and

cover four continents.

First was Rimsky-Korsakov’s Capriccio espagnol. If one judges from this performance, Petrenko and the Russian

National Orchestra favor the Dionysian. Sounds, particularly from the wind soloists and the concertmaster, were wildly

intense and penetrating, almost primitive. The timpanist seemed to be channeling Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Yet

Petrenko kept things in balance, even through one of the fastest finales this reviewer has ever experienced. It was

thrilling.

Next was the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, with Douglas. There was a sober moment, when Douglas took the

microphone to announce the death of Van Cliburn at age 78. The tall, lanky Texan gained international fame as the first

non-Russian to win the Tchaikovsky Competition in 1958, at the height of the Cold War. Douglas touchingly dedicated

Van’s Concerto to his memory.

From the start, with his massive, bronze chords and blazing arpeggios, it was evident that this would be a “pedal-to-the-

metal” performance. Perhaps it lacked subtlety, but this is not a subtle work. It is unabashedly romantic, virtuosic, with

overflowing warmth and emotion. Even the contrasting presto in the slow movement bubbled like a pot of water at a

hard boil. And the finale, though not as fast as Horowitz and Toscanini, was still a joyous romp that brought the

audience to their feet.

But the highlight was the second half, Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances. This is a real showpiece for orchestral

virtuosity, with all the Dionysian intensity of the other works, but held in just enough check by Petrenko to avoid a

descent into chaos. Though most famed as a pianist, Rachmaninoff was easily Tchaikovsky’s equal as an orchestrator,

and nearly as fine as Rimsky-Korsakov.

The opening, sinister march used a variety of solo winds, with their same primitive intensity that had energized the

Korsakov — and included an alto saxophone and bass clarinet.

The string melody was so touching as to bring tears to the eye.

The second movement was a waltz, as wild and unchained as Ravel’s; and the final movement incorporated both the

haunting plainchant Dies Irae and several melodies from Russian liturgy. It was a real tour-de-force, a vehicle for a

virtuoso orchestra and a conductor who knows how to bring out the best from his players.

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

San Francisco Classical Voice • February 24, 2016

Oddities and a Premiere Distinguish Russian National Orchestra’s Visit BY JEFF DUNN It’s the oddities in life that stand out, as Pierre Salinger wrote, and that was certainly my experience with the Russian National Orchestra concert Sunday, Feb. 21, at Davies Hall. What could have been a thoroughly predictable, all-Russian program—the Festive Overture by Shostakovich, a piano concerto by Tchaikovsky, and Stravinsky’s Firebird—ended up as a set of thoroughly unexpected and pleasurable intervals of interest. For example, the concerto, interestingly, wasn’t the No. 1 in B-flat Minor, but the No. 2 in G Major, which gets one-tenth the performances of the famous one. Its second movement has such a heartfelt and extended melody for string solos that you’re teleported out of the bravura piano concerto form into the drawing room of a prince’s country estate. You’re eavesdropping on a tryst involving Alexey Bruni’s wonderful violin and Alexander Gotgelf’s equally excellent cello. The piano evaporates. But only for a while. Yuja Wang was the fleet-fingered soloist for the rest of the concerto. Her technique was flawless in a piece that was as overt and dazzling in the outer movements as you could imagine from this artist. But what struck me about her was not just the superb technique, which, after all, was expected, but also the height of her fingers above the keyboard while executing it. Because the outer movements are rife with treacherous up-and-down-the-keyboard parallel octaves, the high fingers become a far more apparent and crowd-wowing blur. Witnessing it is so jaw-dropping that you are thankfully distracted from the underlying musical vacuity of so many of the passages. The conductor, Mikhail Pletnev, founder of the orchestra more than 25 years ago, seems telepathically connected to his players. No need to wave his arms, except for the audience, now and then. Simply staring or flicking a finger at the right time here and there seems to work wonders with the crew. The RNO is so well-rehearsed, the rest becomes history. Besides Wang, there was another, non-Russian, insertion, the premiere of Gretchen to Faust by local composer Gordon Getty, a long-time supporter of the orchestra (and co-founder of SFCV.) The six-minute setting for soprano and orchestra, adapted from Goethe by the composer, is a somber experience dedicated to the memory of Getty’s troubled son Andrew, who died last year. Like the composer’s opera Usher House, the piece shows Getty’s increasing mastery of and sensitivity to text. Lisa Delan was the fine soloist in an arioso with a wavering orchestral accompaniment that sounded simultaneously gentle and jagged. I found it to be one of Getty’s best works. Both the Shostakovich and Stravinsky were very well executed under Pletnev; no surprise there. Surprises came in the encores—four of them. Wang received a stupendous and deserved ovation, and she replied, after

Russian National Orchestra San Francisco Classical Voice • February 24, 2016 page 2 of 2

the exhausting Tchaikovsky, with Giovanni Sgambati’s lovely transcription of Gluck’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orfeo ed Eurydice. To continued acclaim, she returned with a virtuoso, jazz-infused version of Mozart’s Turkish March, her own take on prior arrangements by Arcadi Volodos and Fazil Say. After The Firebird, Pletnev greatly pleased the audience with two pop Khachaturian numbers, the waltz from the Masquerade Suite and the lezginka from Gayane.

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Los Angeles Times • February 20, 2016

Yuja Wang and the Russian National Orchestra perform in Northridge BY RICK SCHULTZ The Russian pianist-conductor Mikhail Pletnev once said that "intensity" was the most basic characteristic of the Russian sound, and that quality was fully on display at the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge on Friday night as he led the Russian National Orchestra in a program of works by Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky. The sold-out concert kicked off the orchestra's 16-city 25th anniversary tour, with upcoming stops in Palm Desert and at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa. By his own reckoning, Pletnev, who founded the orchestra in 1990 and remains its music and artistic director, has not performed in Southern California in nearly a decade. Once regarded as a cool, undemonstrative conductor, Pletnev's podium manner was involved and involving. The orchestra played brilliantly from the concert's rousing opener, Shostakovich's "Festive Overture." Intense focus also marked soloist Yuja Wang's blazing account of the concert's centerpiece, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2, proving you don't have to be Russian to play like one. She displayed a Horowitz-like bravura in the concerto's opening movement, dispatching long chordal passages in the big cadenza (one of three) with breathtaking accuracy and dexterity. Such economy of motion at the keyboard was fascinating to watch. Wang achieved maximum effect with seemingly minimal effort. If she were a tennis player, she would be Roger Federer. Though not as popular as the First Concerto, Tchaikovsky's Second (there's also a single-movement Third) is just as crowd-pleasing. Pletnev and the orchestra maintained an exciting sense of forward sweep in the concerto's outer movements, handling some of Tchaikovsky's characteristic bombast with the right degree of panache. The score's soulful central Andante, which has often been subject to cuts, came off as lovely but as odd as ever. The beginning, a duo-concerto that almost forgets about the orchestra altogether, gave the RNO's concertmaster, Alexey Bruni, and principal cellist, Alexander Gotgelf, a chance to shine. Eventually, Wang joined in, making it a quasi triple concerto. Wang and the orchestra, playing the full score Pletnev himself performed on his impressive Virgin Classics disc from 1998, brought the work in at a longish 46 minutes, but found enough contrasting lyricism amid the score's many climaxes and flamboyant passages to keep it afloat.

Russian National Orchestra Los Angeles Times • February 20, 2016 page 2 of 2

Amazingly, Wang had enough energy left for an encore: Earl Wild's arrangement of the "Pas de Quatre" from Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake," delicately rendered. After intermission, Pletnev summoned colorful intensity from the ensemble in a carefully shaped reading of Stravinsky's "The Firebird," contoured to highlight the ensemble's many virtuosos. Individual sonorities from flute, oboe and horns bloomed. Pletnev and the RNO performed the 1945 version, which benefits from a generous selection of music from the composer's ballet score perfectly paced for a concert audience. Though some textural transparency was lost in climaxes, and string tremolos grew coarse in the climactic "Infernal Dance," the work's alluring mystery came through in a hypnotic rendition of the penultimate "Berceuse." Besides, isn't a certain bravura coarseness also part of the Russian sound? The orchestra offered two rhythmically incisive encores: Khachaturian's Waltz from "Masquerade," and Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Buffoons" from "The Snow Maiden."

NEWS FROM THE RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

June 2011

The Russian National Orchestra has just completed its 2010-2011 concert season, which saw highly acclaimed debuts

at the Shanghai Spring International Music Festival and Abu Dhabi Festival, visits to Europe's music capitals, and a home season that included the orchestra's second annual Grand Festival in Moscow. This summer the RNO will be

visiting the United States for July residencies at California's Napa Valley Festival del Sole and Philadelphia's Mann

Center for the Performing Arts.

Highlights in Napa include perfomances with violinist Sarah Chang, sopranos Nino Machaidze and Aleksandra Kurzak,

baritone Guido Loconsolo, tenor Francesco Demuro and pianist Joyce Yang. Also, the RNO Brass Quintet will give

two joint concerts together with the United States Army Brass Quintet, in tribute to veterans of the Second World War. Set among lush rolling foothills and breathtaking vineyard landscapes, Napa Valley Festival del Sole brings together

the best in music, dance, fine wine and cuisine, and unique lifestyle programs for a 10-day experience the New York

Times calls a “feast for the senses.” For concert dates, ticket links and more information about Festival del Sole, visit

the website or call the festival office at 707-294-2800. Mention RAF for a 10 percent discount on tickets and VIP packages.

At The Mann Center, the RNO will perform The Blue Planet Live, narrated by broadcast journalist Jane Pauley and accompanied by spectacular high definition imagery. Other concerts include Cirque de la Symphonie, where the RNO

will be accompanied by a troupe of aerial flyers and acrobats, marrying the magic of cirque and orchestra, and From

Russia With Love – With Fireworks, a program designed to light up the Philadelphia sky.

Recent Recordings Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, the first release in the RNO's complete Tchaikovsky symphonies cycle on PentaTone, has been receiving rave reviews. The Washington Post called

the recording "a dramatic, lovingly crafted and insightful performance by musicians who seem to

feel the music as well as understand it." BBC Radio said, "The Russian National is a super-orchestra and on this disc Pletnev gets the most out of them..." International Record Review

wrote that "these are remarkably spontaneous, fiery and wholesome performances, which benefit from first-class,

audiophile-worthy recording. On its own terms, this PentaTone release sweeps one away." The next release in the cycle

will be Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony.

The RNO's Warner Classics release, Glazunov: Complete Concertos, conducted by Jose Serebrier, was named Classical

CD of the Week by the London Telegraph ("this set is a godsend") and Recording of the Month by MusicWeb ("This goes straight to the top of the recommended versions of the concertos. I cannot imagine it being surpassed..."). Read all

the reviews and see the ecard from Naxos, which is distributing the CD in the United States.

RNO recordings can be purchased from the Russian Arts Foundation and fine music outlets, as well as via iTunes.

Global Music The year is not half over, yet the RNO has already visited nearly all four corners of the globe, from The Netherlands in

February, to Abu Dhabi in April, and Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Shanghai in May. The traveling will continue apace in the months ahead. After Napa and Philadelphia in July, the RNO will visit Poland in August and France and

Germany in September. Also in September, the RNO will open its 2011 Moscow season with the 3rd annual Grand

Festival, an event that has become a destination for music lovers all over the globe. The Russian National Orchestra also looks forward to its fourteenth tour of North America, in February and March 2013.

Visit the RNO website for the most current information on concert dates and programs.

http://www.russianarts.org/rno/index.cfm

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Washington Post March 29, 2011

New RNO recording full of emotion, drama BY MARK J. ESTREN

BodyTchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4; Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture. Russian National Orchestra conducted by

Mikhail Pletnev. PentaTone. $19.99 (SACD).

The first recording by the Russian National Orchestra, made just a year after Mikhail Pletnev founded the ensemble in

1990, was a gorgeously played and emotionally revelatory reading of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 that instantly

placed Pletnev and the RNO in the forefront of modern interpreters of this composer. This new recording of Symphony No. 4 keeps them there.

From the opening proclamation of the “fate” motif on burnished brass, through a first movement handled with tone-

poem flair so its length does not seem ungainly and its episodic nature makes perfect sense, Pletnev shows his clear

understanding of and empathy for Tchaikovsky’s music. Fast sections are a touch speedier than usual, slow ones a touch slower, resulting in increased drama that climaxes at the movement’s end with a broad and portentous

conclusion.

The second movement provides nice balance, rocking gently and not wallowing in the emotionalism of the first. It is followed by a quicksilver, wonderfully buoyant pizzicato Scherzo that flits and dances hither and yon, enfolding a

rollicking Trio in which the woodwind playing is outstanding. Then the finale bursts like thunder on the scene, with

Pletnev’s pacing and the excellent playing of the scurrying strings and dramatic brass combining to produce a thrilling and highly dramatic conclusion. The clear, warm Super Audio CD sound adds to the impact of the performance.

SACD quality benefits “Romeo and Juliet,” too. In the work’s gloom-laden opening, its speedy and intense musical

confrontation of Montagues and Capulets, and the gorgeous viola playing introducing the famous “love theme,” the

sonic warmth and precision enhance and beautifully reflect Tchaikovsky’s emotion-laden overture. From the start to the final tragic ending, this is a dramatic, lovingly crafted and insightful performance by musicians who seem to feel the

music as well as understand it.

Russian National Orchestra

Sarasota Herald Tribune March 7, 2010

From Russia, with skill BY RICHARD STORM

The Russian National Orchestra, an independent ensemble, not state-owned, brought enormous skill and excitement to

the Van Wezel on Friday evening, demonstrating again the power of musical energy in the hands of highly motivated

musicians.

Under the athletic leadership of their American guest conductor, Patrick Summers, music director of the Houston

Grand Opera, and belying their moderate size by today's standards, the orchestra produced sound of impressive power

and solidity, transparent and beautifully balanced from top to bottom.

Contrary to expectation, the program included no Russian music until the exuberant encore, a dance from

Tchaikovsky's opera, "The Snow Maiden," in which caution was thrown to the winds and the percussion delivered

infectious Russian rhythmic drive.

Prior to that, however, two iconic works by Beethoven were treated to incisive renditions of memorable clarity and

graceful strength.

The "Coriolan" overture, which begins with a forthright declaration that this is the story of a fallen warrior, soon moves

to touching expression of the sensitive aspects of his nature.

Despite the dry acoustics of the Van Wezel, the audience was bathed in a rich European sound, consistent across all the

voices of the orchestra, in this case disposed on the stage with the violins divided to the left and right of the conductor,

the cellos and violas facing each other, resulting in an unusually tight blend.

Beethoven's beloved Piano Concerto No. 5, known as the "Emperor," followed. This performance, in which Yuja Wang

quite simply blew us away, was characterized by musicianship that transcended virtuosity or flawless technique, both

of which were in ample supply but subsidiary to clarity of expression and respect for the composer's vision.

An austere and lovely experience was the result.

The program was completed by a sumptuous and energetic performance of Antonin Dvorak's endlessly inventive and

somewhat subversive eighth symphony.

As is often the case with this composer, his Bohemian roots burst forth to bend the conventions of Romanticism toward

folkloric expression.

Dance rhythms, off-kilter brass salvos, precise but flexible ensemble -- all these were in generous supply, under

Summers' balletic direction, and resulted in a thrilling performance of this beloved work.

Even a brief bubble in the famous trumpet fanfare that begins the final movement didn't spoil the fun.

Russian National Orchestra

The Denver Post February 25, 2010

Russian orchestra makes triumphant return to Denver BY KYLE MACMILLAN

The Russian National Orchestra's appearance two years ago in the Newman Center Presents series ranks among

Denver's classical highlights of that season and, indeed, the entire decade.

Memories of that concert, along with the ensemble's ranking in December 2008 by Gramophone Magazine as the

world's 15th greatest orchestra, led to ample anticipation of its return engagement Wednesday in Gates Concert Hall.

Its Denver stop was part of a cross-country tour marking the 20th anniversary of the founding of the ensemble, the only

major Russian orchestra that is privately funded.

Leading the concert two years ago was the orchestra's idiosyncratic principal guest conductor, Vladimir Jurowski, who

drew bold, utterly alive playing from this agile, responsive group of more than 90 musicians.

American guest conductor Patrick Summers, music director of the Houston Grand Opera, took the podium Wednesday.

If he did not attain the emotional depth or visceral intensity of the orchestra's previous visit, he delivered a high-caliber

performance of his own.

Summers conveyed the overall power and sweep of the evening's culminating work, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's

Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36. He invested the long opening movement with the requisite moodiness and tension

and ended with a fast — probably overly fast — take on the finale.

An added attraction was Denver's first opportunity to hear Yuja Wang. The 23-year-old soloist's distinctive

interpretation of Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73, "Emperor," made it clear why

she has caused such a stir in classical circles.

It was possible to quibble with a phrasing here or there, but Wang possesses a nuanced sense of pianistic color and

shape, creating at several points, for example, a wonderful music-box effect in the upper register of the piano.

Wang brought a kind of poetic sensibility to the slow movement, where she and Summers made sure her often hushed

playing was wonderfully balanced with the orchestra's supportive accompaniment.

The young pianist also has a flair for the dramatic, as was evidenced in her breathtaking transition from the slow

section to the high-energy finale, which she dashed off with flair.

Russian National Orchestra

LA Times Blog February 21, 2010

Music review: Russian National Orchestra in Cerritos BY MARK SWED

Photo: Stefan Jackiw. Credit: 21C Media Group

The Russian National Orchestra, a miracle of perestroika, was founded by Mikhail Pletnev 20 years ago. The first

orchestra in Russia with no state support, it broke all the rules. It was an orchestra with no tradition, led by a pianist

with little conducting or ensemble building experience. Yet from the start, the orchestra proved one of the world’s great

ensembles.

To look at the U.S. itinerary of the orchestra's 20th anniversary tour, which included a stop at the Cerritos Center for

the Performing Arts on Saturday night, you might reasonably conclude that the glory days for an orchestra once a

magnet for celebrities and world leaders (including Sophia Loren, Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev) are over. It is

mostly skirting the big cities and major venues. The tour winds up as the centerpiece of an arts festival in Boca Raton,

Fla., where it will premiere a new work by Gordon Getty and where the orchestra shares festival billing with New York

Times columnist David Brooks.

Still, these resolute Russians wouldn’t still be together if they couldn’t smell money and weren’t politically savvy.

They’re still great. The concert in Cerritos, conducted by Pletnev, was glorious.

Even so, this is a weird tour and Saturday’s was a weird, if very Russian, concert. Pletnev began somberly with an

elegy and ended with musical wisecracks. In between came Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto and Shostakovich’s

sarcastic Symphony No. 9.

Pletnev is not a demonstrative conductor. At the podium he looks like a plutocrat who can make things happen by

snapping his fingers. With the flick of a wrist he exquisitely shaped each phrase and controlled extraordinarily delicate

dynamics. In the opening elegy, from Tchaikovsky’s Third Suite, the string tone was as rich and pleasing a blend as can

be found this side of Vienna.

Stefan Jackiw, a 24-year-old violinist from Boston, was soloist in Tchaikovsky’s concerto. He has been hyped as the

next sensation. His Korean mother and Ukrainian/German father are physicists. He is Harvard-educated. He is slight,

Russian National Orchestra

LA Times Blog February 21, 2010

page 2 of 2

fine-featured, boyish. He has a striking, percussive technique. He could be a rock star. And he tears into Tchaikovsky

like a rock star might if a rock star could.

Even if you don’t care much for this sort of thing, Jackiw’s was a fascinating, impressive and often riveting

performance. A soloist's blistering tone stood in stark contrast to the warmer Russian string and wind sound. Jackiw

made each phrase an individual and excitable event, whether it needed to be or not. In the folk-inspired Finale, Jackiw

might have been playing Bartók or something more modern, and I’m not sure why he wasn’t.

But Pletnev was a marvelous accompanist. He did not inhibit Jackiw, letting a young virtuoso go where he would while

saving him from recklessness. There can’t be much doubt that Jackiw’s star will continue to rise. He has the

flamboyance and the goods. I hope the capacity for growth is part of the equation as well.

The Ninth is Shostakovich’s carnival-esque 1945 victory symphony. It comes between the wartime “Leningrad”

Symphony and the heavy, philosophical Tenth. One way to look at the Ninth’s superciliousness celebration of Russian

victory is as Shostakovich’s snubbing of Stalin. The tragedy of war was too much for anything but farce, and such

suffering made Shostakovich silly. Meanwhile, Russia's troubles were hardly over.

Pletnev’s performance was very subtle, operating on the level of profound understatement. The surface of the

symphony sounded like lively easy-listening Saturday. The nose thumbing and flatulence jokes remained underneath.

But the approach didn’t move the audience. Jackiw received a rousing standing ovation after the first movement of the

concerto. After the symphony, the crowd sat on its hands.

The encores were two amusing movements from Pletnev’s own “Jazz Suite.” The style is Shostakovich meets Spike

Jones. And that’s not a bad way to look at modern-day Moscow or keep an orchestra’s spirits up while on the grueling

road.

NEW YORK | LOS ANGELES

Russian National Orchestra

The New York Times February 26, 2008

In Precise Movements, A Russian Sense of Drama

The Russian National Orchestra, with its young and energetic players, seemed like an upstart band when Mikhail

Pletnev founded it in 1990, but he quickly established it as an important ensemble in the post-Soviet music world. The orchestra has also had a fruitful relationship with Vladimir Jurowski, the 35-year-old Russian firebrand who

became its principal guest conductor in 2005.

Mr. Jurowski is juggling other prestigious posts - the directorships of the Glyndebourne Opera Festival and the London Philharmonic Orchestra - as well as a busy conducting schedule. But from a New Yorker's perspective,

his relationship with this Russian orchestra seems particularly strong: he conducted it on its visits here in 2006

and 2007, and when it returned to Avery Fisher Hall on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon he was at its podium again.

Mr. Jurowski opened the Saturday program with the Schubert Eighth Symphony, the "Unfinished," in a completion by Anton Safronov. Listeners faced with a finished "Unfinished" inevitably ask two questions. Is a

completion necessary? And given that for most people the answer is no - this work, beloved in its two-movement

form, has a secure berth in the repertory - is the solution worthy of the challenge?

That answer, alas, was a thumbs down as well. For the third movement Mr. Safronov had Schubert's piano sketch

as a guide, but his big, boomy orchestration, with a gentle pastoral trio at its core, sounded jarring after the first

two movements.

The finale was more freewheeling, drawing on other Schubert scores (an unfinished piano sonata and the "Marche

Héroïque" for piano four hands). Its nicer touches included woodwind lines that vaguely mirrored those of the opening movement, although its dominant effects were speed and fury.

The movement gave Mr. Jurowski a wonderful way to show off the orchestra's precision and heft, but it put this

completion on a different planet from the two graceful movements Schubert wrote before setting the score aside.

Each concert included one of the Brahms Piano Concertos. On Saturday Stephen Hough was the soloist in the D

minor Concerto (Op. 15), and true to form, he played with an impetuous, forceful touch that gave his reading - or at least the outer movements - an electrifying quality that Mr. Jurowski and his players matched. The Adagio, by

contrast, was oddly passionless at first, but once Mr. Hough warmed to it, he gave it an appealingly supple

account.

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

The New York Times February 26, 2008

page 2 of 2

In the B flat major Concerto (Op. 83) on Sunday, Garrick Ohlsson took a patrician view of the rich piano writing,

creating breadth while avoiding bluster. His performance was a study in unleashing a powerful sound with no

wasted movement: he made it seem as if he were moving through the thick-textured scoring without breaking a sweat. The orchestra, except for momentarily sour opening horn passages, produced a brilliant, assertive sound,

suffused with a particularly Russian sense of drama.

Mr. Jurowski closed the Sunday concert with a hot-blooded, palpably emotional performance of the Tchaikovsky "Pathétique" Symphony (Op. 74), full of unusual and welcome touches. In the opening movement, instead of

striving for coherence, Mr. Jurowski stressed the episodic quality of the writing, offering the music as a stream of

fevered reminiscences painted on a vast canvas. He drew extraordinary effects from the orchestra, including swirling string and woodwind figures in the Allegro molto vivace, along with superbly balanced brass playing and

full-throttle percussion.

His tempos were unusually fluid throughout, at no cost in ensemble tightness. And he gave the dark finale such a

plangent reading that it seemed, at times, as if this symphony might have been Mahler's principal sourcebook.

NEW YORK | LOS ANGELES

Russian National Orchestra

Sun-Sentinel March 21, 2006

Russian orchestra offers a fresher Tchaikovsky

BY ALAN BECKER

Can anything really new and revelatory be done with Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto? As someone said,

"Certainly; perform his Second or Third Concerto instead."

For better or worse, we had the favored Concerto in B flat minor once again as part of the Russian National

Orchestra's concert at the Jackie Gleason Theater Thursday evening, presented by the Concert Association of

Florida.

With pianist Yefim Bronfman as soloist, the warhorse seemed fresher than usual. Vladimir Jurowski's conducting,

with its special attention to phrasing, proved an apt partner in helping to bring some sanity to Bronfman's

impetuous and sometimes over-the-top traversal of the music. Excepting most of the Andantino semplice, with its

lovely flute and oboe solos, this was the kind of virtuosic performance that continuously pushes the envelope,

with awesome results at times.

The composer's infrequently performed Manfred Symphony gave the orchestra an opportunity to demonstrate its

own brand of bravura. This rambling, four-movement composition contains some of the composer's most

powerful music. Inspired by Lord Byron's hero, we are taken on Manfred's travels from his wanderings in the

Alps to his encounter with the ghost of Astarte and eventual death. The brooding Manfred theme shows up in

different guises in all of his travels.

The sound of the Russian orchestra is basically a lean one, particularly in the strings. Jurowski's limited gestures

coaxed forth playing of accuracy and enthusiasm from his very well disciplined ensemble. String bowing was far

more unified than many of their Western counterparts, and the brass had none of the bleat that plagued Russian

orchestras several decades back. The timpani had a real presence but the sound decayed rapidly, although part of

this may have been due to the dry acoustics of the venue.