Around the world with Irina: tchaicovsky

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Palace Grand Hall
Series "Great Orchestras"
SANKT PETERSBURG PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
Conductor: YURI TEMIRKANOV
Soloist: HÉLÈNE GRIMAUD
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Program
Rachmaninov – Concerto no. 2 for piano and orchestra in c minor op. 18
Tchaikovski – Symphony no. 6 "Patetica" in h minor op. 74
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......And the Russians came. With the spirit and the powerful sound. They chose two very well known pieces. The concert is a masterpiece and each pianist plays it. Even Celine Dion picked some bars. When listening to the second part, don't you feel like singing? it's like you heard the notes before but you don't know where. It's All by Myself :).
......Helene Grimaud played it gently but it was obviously very difficul for her to overcome the orchestra. Even staying very close to the stage I couldn't hear the piano because of the doublebasses in front of me. They were on the left side of the stage instead of right. The orchestra sounded great, but they forgot there's not a symphony but a concert and they should let the piano be heard. It was like in those silent movies when you see the characters moving but there's no sound. The piano could be heard during the second part, from time to time.
.....The symphony was great. The third part was an explosion. I tried to make a bet before the concert and I could have won it easily. People applauded after this third part. This is what usually happens. The fourth part is not that noisy and it ends quietly.
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.....Yuri Temirkanov became the artistic director and chief conductor of St.Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in 1988. Looking back into Temirkanov's early career, a key event was his victory at the 2nd National Conductors' Competition in 1966. From that moment onwards, Temirkanov, a graduate student of the Leningrad Conservatory (class of Professor Ilia Musin) overnight entered the ranks of the most sought-after conductors of his generation.

.....Together with Kirill Kondrashin and David Oistrakh he toured internationally and performed with orchestras from the US, France and Germany. In early 1967 Temirkanov conducted a concert in the Philharmonic Hall and after this performance Evgeny Mravinsky offered him the position of assistant conductor. From 1968 the maestro was head of the Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Philharmonia. He widened the orchestra's repertoire and took them on tour to Europe, Japan and the US.

.....In 1976 Temirkanov became the artistic director and chief conductor of the Kirov (Mariinsky) Theatre. Here he created classic productions of "War and Peace" by Prokofiev, "Eugene Onegin" and "Queen of Spades" by Tchaikovsky as well as and "Peter I" by Petrov and "Dead Souls" by Shchedrin. At this time Kirov also started actively performing abroad. The theatre toured the US, Japan and many countries of Europe, including England, for the first time in history. Temirkanov initiated symphony concerts by the theatre orchestra both in Russia and abroad.

......Despite the intensity of his concert schedule, Temirkanov has made the preservation and nurturing of St. Petersburg's spiritual and cultural inheritance the subject of an International Foundation for Cultural Initiatives in his name. In 1998 he created the Temirkanov award for talented young musicians, granted annually to outstanding students both of the Musical School of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, and of the Conservatory itself.

......In 1999 Temirkanov founded a new international winter festival in "Arts Square", from which the festival takes it's name. This series of prestigious concerts which runs from the end of December into January, presenting the world's greatest soloists with the orchestra, has become a cultural highlight of life in St Petersburg.
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Helene Grimaud and Yuri Temirkanov at the end of the concert

Sankt Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and Yuri Temirkanov
Yuri Temirkanov

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......Listen to Helene Grimaud playing Rachmaninov 2nd piano concert. Conductor: Claudio Abbado

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Palace Grand Hall
Series "Great Orchestras"
ORCHESTRE PHILHARMONIQUE DE RADIO FRANCE
Conductor: DMITRIJ KITAJENKO
Soloist: RUDOLF BUCHBINDER
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Program:
Schostakovici – Ballet Suite no. 3
Rachmaninov – Rhapsody on a theme by Paganini op. 43
Tchaikovsky – Symphony no. 5 in e minor op. 64
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......Last night I enjoyed the concert very much. I wanted to hear more so I went again. The Ballet Suite is beautiful. And the orchestra played it with passion and joy. As it should be.
.....I expected more from the concert. This Rhapsody is beautiful. I wanted for the soloist to share with us the feeling, to create a certain atmosphere. But I couldn't feel anything. Just a right rendering of the score. I little bit too flat, without involvement. And there were certain moments when he rushed and left the orchestra behind. They're too good to have problems so everything ended well. I enjoyed more the encore. It was "The Bat" (Fladermous) by Strauss, a transcription for piano. But I came home and looked for this piece on Youtube. Look what I found. Lang Lang's renderind of the same piece. I came to the conclusion that this one was as flat as the concert.

......I was waiting for the symphony. When playing with the soloist, the orchestra pays attention not to get over him/her. But during the symphony they can show what they can do. And they did it sooooo well. There were amazing moments and the end was glorious. The endings at Tchaikovsky are as long as the ones at Beethoven. You think it's over but there are two more pages left. Up and down, up and down, strings, brass, percussion, everybody contribute to the boom. Great! Tonight the Palace Hall was packed. I think those who were there last night told the other what they have missed. And the big crowd gathered again. Lots of ovations in the end. And the reward was as beautiful as the concert. The encore was Edvard Grieg's "Last Spring", one of the elegies he wrote for orchestra.

......Rudolf Buchbinder - with five years of age the youngest student ever to be admitted to the Vienna Musik Hochschule - began his comprehensive musical career as chamber musician. In the meantime, he performed as soloist with all great orchestras and conductors all over the world and is regular guest at the Salzburger Festspiele and all other major festivals.Rudolf Buchbinder's repertoire is extensive and includes numerous 20th century compositions. He attaches considerable importance to the meticulous work of the study of sources. He disposes of more than 18 complete editions of Beethoven's Sonatas and has an extensive collection of first editions and original documents.
...... For the outstanding recording of the complete piano work by Joseph Haydn, he received the "Grand Prix du disque". Meanwhile, Rudolf Buchbinder prefers live-recordings. His cycle of all Mozart piano concertos with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, live recorded at the Vienna Konzerthaus, was acclaimed by the famous critic Joachim Kaiser as CD of the year 1998. In the Johann- Strauss-Year 1999, Buchbinder released an exceptional CD of piano-transcriptions entitled "Waltzing Strauss". Buchbinder's latest hallmarks of live-recordings represent both Brahms piano-concertos with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under the direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt and all five Beethoven piano-concertos with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra as soloist and conductor.
...... Since 2007 Rudolf Buchbinder is the Artistic Director of the Grafenegg Festival. In his spare time, Buchbinder is interested in literature as well as in fine arts and whenever there is an opportunity between rehearsals and concert tours, he enjoys himself as an impassioned amateur painter.