Concerts in the USA
October – November 2004

Russia's oldest symphony orchestra surpassed all expectations Friday evening at George Mason University's Center for the Arts. Featuring a trio of Russian-penned works, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra spilled forth music in the purest form possible -- straight from each score's soul and into the hearts of listeners.
Conducting without a baton, Artistic Director Yuri Temirkanov, who also directs the Baltimore Symphony, led the orchestra through an elegant performance of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 in D, Op. 25 ("Classical"). Indeed, the work sounded as though it were being played by a chamber orchestra half the size of the 107-member Philharmonic.
American Lynn Harrell joined the group for Shostakovich's Concerto No. 1 in E-flat for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 107. Harrell bowed so passionately while eliciting myriad sounds from his cello that those near the stage saw a mist of rosin rising. The St. Petersburg proved a sensitive partner for the cellist, allowing him full spotlight but taking it in turn. Harrell's cadenza was especially haunting and introspective to the point of being almost improvisatory.
Captivating the ears with an exhilarating array of dynamics in Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 ("Pathetique"), the Philharmonic reveled in the pathos of the composer's final symphony. Its strings presented poetically tender melodies and its brass blared with anguished intensity. The elegiac finale's pedal points resonated in the chest and when the final note decayed into an abysmal silence, the audience reverently waited before erupting with a lengthy -- and well-deserved - ovation.

25.10.2004
The Washington Post
Grace Jean

A Full-Bodied Approach to Eastern Repertory

The St. Petersburg Philharmonic is in town for three concerts at Carnegie Hall this week. The orchestra and its conductor, Yuri Temirkanov, are wasting little time on music to which they are not geographically entitled. The Schumann Piano Concerto on Tuesday is about as far west as these programs go. There was also Dvorak last night, otherwise Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and the like.
…No acoustical properties in any hall can account for the string sound this orchestra makes, which seems to emanate out of the stage floorboards and throb with a dark, slightly opaque glow. …If Prokofiev's familiar First Symphony retained its soubriquet, "Classical," its performers on Tuesday were more or less erasing any other reference to the 18th century. No cut-down violin sections here, no conversational fineness between instruments: there was only big, lovely sound and articulation hidden in a fog of imprecision.
…Indeed, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic is quite a beauty - under the right light, and as long as one doesn't look too closely.

28.10.04
New York Times
Bernard Holland

Cosmic sounds abound when worlds are one
Russians touch each other’s souls

Something alchemic occurred Thursday night at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. Yuri Temirkanov took standard works of the Russian repertoire, poured them into his St. Petersburg Philharmonic, stirred them with his unself-conscious ideas about the nature of music-making, and created sonic gold.
More than that, he generated the kind of emotional communication that grabs you and doesn't easily let go. I was still reliving moments of that concert the next day, and expect to be doing so for a long time.
Temirkanov sent Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 on a fleet, effervescent course, without slighting any of the warm or wry aspects in the piece. There was something unmistakably affectionate about the conductor's approach, a gentle underlining of the nostalgic shadows behind this updated classicism.
The Cello Concerto No. 1 by Shostakovich, like so many of his works, suggests an aural diary where innermost worries and dreams have been recorded. The brilliant American cellist Lynn Harrell unlocked those secrets with playing that was extraordinarily incisive and gripping, not to mention technically splendid. Temirkanov matched him for insight; the orchestra, including a fearless horn soloist, matched Harrell for virtuosity.
Temirkanov has programmed Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony twice with the BSO in four years, and inspired potent performances both times, but nothing like what he and his countrymen achieved here.
It was as if everyone on that stage were feeling Tchaikovsky's pain - living it, really.
Without any heavy-handed twists of phrasing or dynamics, Temirkanov made all of this feel incredibly personal and real as he drew a searing response from the Philharmonic. As a demonstration of pure orchestral mettle, the performance would have been striking enough. As an expression of music's visceral power, it was simply profound.

30.10.04
The Baltimore Sun
Tim Smith

A truly memorable night with Repin and famed Russian orchestra

With the Jackie Gleason Theater in Miami Beach festooned with American and Russian flags on election eve, conductor Yuri Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra opened the Concert Association of Florida's season with rich and majestic performances of both countries' national anthems. It made for a serendipitous ode to democracy at a time of national political ferment.
Under its current artistic director and principal conductor Temirkanov, the orchestra remains an instrument of remarkable firepower, virtuosity and polished precision. The corporate sound is largely consistent: dark burnished strings that turn on a dime, heaven-storming brass and athletic woodwinds. A single horn blooper almost came as a relief: The Russian musicians were human after all.
Prokofiev's Classical Symphony was listed as Monday's curtain raiser, but was replaced without comment by four excerpts from the composer's anarchic opera The Love for Three Oranges. Temirkanov drew a full-metal performance that underlined the clangorous brass riffs and biting sarcasm. The popular March was punched across with a weight and aggressive impact that made the subversive element unmistakable.
The fact that Vadim Repin opted to perform Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1 rather than the flashier Second Concerto is testament to the Siberian violinist's artistic integrity. Though not without its virtuosic moments, the First Concerto is a more subdued interior piece, with a dreamlike introspection alternating with bursts of bravura.
From the pastel pianissimos of the opening statement, Repin conveyed the withdrawn romantic essence of the piece with astonishing control, delicacy and poetic elegance. Nothing sounded forced or effortful, and the violinist's even production, sensitive bowing and flawless passagework were put entirely at the service of the music.
The rapid-fire passages were rendered with fluent articulation and natural virtuosity. With the finale's blend of nocturnal lyricism and jocular energy kept in seamless accord, Repin floated the hushed solo line at the coda on a feather-light thread of tone. Temirkanov's eloquent and beautifully layered support was on the same level, making for a truly memorable performance.
The Dvorak centennial season continued with Temirkanov leading his players in the Czech composer's Symphony No. 8. The conductor scrupulously balanced textures, and the unanimity of string ensemble and burst of brassy adrenaline in the acceleration of the final bars was thrilling.

04.11.04
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Lawrence A. Johnson

The St. Petersburg Philharmonic shows it is an elegant Russian ensemble of the first degree.
When powerhouse orchestras tour, they often program powerhouse symphonies by Bruckner, Mahler and their ilk just so no one misses the point. Late on Sunday afternoon at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic showed that it belongs to the first rank of international orchestras by opening the Festival of Orchestras' 21st season with a program that made the same point but in an elegantly understated manner.
Artistic Director Yuri Temirkanov led his visiting Russian ensemble in three outstanding performances of works by Sergei Prokofiev and Antonin Dvorak. None of these is usually considered a "showpiece" for orchestra, but under Temirkanov, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic gave performances that could have served as definitive recordings for the most discriminating collectors.
The program opened with Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1, nicknamed the "Classical Symphony" for its reduced forces, clear formal outlines and a melodic style that imitates Mozart and Haydn, albeit with a slightly modern accent. To the casual listener, the work might have sounded as if it was simply being tossed off by the Russians, but that was only because this orchestra was in such technical command of the work.
The following Concerto No. 1 for Violin, also by Prokofiev, offered more transparent textures, which made it possible to appreciate the many layers, each with its own color. Prokofiev's soaring melodies, which can sound screechy in the hands of a lesser ensemble, were ethereal, and at times in the slow first movement the orchestra sounded magically like a celesta.
Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 formed the second half of the concert, and again it was the orchestra's sound that impressed the most.
The tone of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic displayed a presence and vibrancy that most other orchestras lack in this difficult hall, and a few brief passages with the brass at the end of the fourth movement hinted at the sound that this ensemble could have given, had the work demanded more.

09.11.04
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Scott Warfield

RUSSIANS DISPLAY CLEAN, LIGHT TOUCH AT KRAVIS CENTER

Playing to its considerable strengths, the St. Petersburg (formerly the Leningrad) Philharmonic Orchestra opened the Regional Arts series Friday afternoon with the first of two all-Russian programs at the Kravis Center. And in his return to South Florida, Yuri Temirkanov, the Russians' music director of 16 years, again proved to be one of the most inspiring and eloquent conductors in the field.
Friday's program featured renowned American cellist Lynn Harrell in Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat, sandwiched between two orchestral standards: Prokofiev's Symphony No. 1 ("Classical") and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 ("Pathetique"). But little was standard about the program's performances or the two encores.
Harrell comes closest to highlighting the cello's human vocal quality. He even phrases the melodies as if imitating a singer's breath patterns. And like a vocalist, he changes timbre and color to best express the music's sentiments.
He engaged the music - and the listener - so intensely that the Shostakovich emerged as more of a play about the drama and constancy of human striving than an instance of simply gorgeous, incisive playing.
Whether Harrell's soliloquies waxed soulful and sorrowful, distraught or defiant, restive or reflective, Temirkanov backed him up with brilliant effects and beautifully finished lines. The combination was electric, building one of the best conceptualizations of the work.
Temirkanov, with the same rhythmic drive that powered the Shostakovich, heightened the aerodynamics in Prokofiev's Classical and the urgency in Tchaikovsky's Pathetique. Although Tchaikovsky's off-beat "waltz" (second movement) drifted and sank into redundancy, the explosive first and exultant third movements let the celebrated Russian brass players reign triumphant.
French hornist Andrei Gloukhov, among other wind soloists, cradled the listener in the melancholy and yearning.
The Prokofiev, like the Shostakovich concerto, stuttered a bit when players weren't unanimous about the rhythms. But mostly, the Classical symphony was exuberance in flight and a rare model of a large orchestra playing delicately, cleanly and with far more clarity than it mustered in its 2002 Kravis concert.
Mostly, the praise belongs to Temirkanov, so perceptive in his attention to fleeting nuances and details as well as the overall picture.

07.11.2004
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
Sharon McDaniel

MUSIC REVIEW
Russian music stirs symphony audience
Temirkanov baton drives St. Petersburg orchestra

His courtly podium manner belies the Slavic intensity of feeling that flows like an electric current through his elegant hands to the musicians, and, through them, to the rapt audience.
The conductor secured remarkably light and crisp articulations in Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony despite his deploying a large complement of players. The vivacity, charm and high spirits of this reading rested on a foundation of fleet strings and bubbly woodwinds; indeed, the fiddles sometimes seemed to be tippy-toeing on little cat's feet.
From the Haydnesque levity of the Prokofiev, Temirkanov turned to the mordant satire of Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto and, after intermission, the tragic melodrama of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" Symphony.
The St. Petersburg players really gave their all to the Shostakovich--tangy winds chattering away obsessively, clarion brasses (including a superb principal horn) hammering away at the composer's motivic signature.
I didn't feel cellist Lynn Harrell, who brought amazing technical control and urgency to the difficult solo part, quite matched his Russian colleagues in emotional fervor, but his stamina was remarkable and he delivered a first-rate performance. The long cadenza that precedes the finale all but sighed with pained introspection.
Both the Shostakovich concerto and Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony journey, to varying degrees, into the heart of darkness. At least that's how the dark, saturated Russian strings (get a load of those nine double basses!) and molten brass, with their distinctive vibrato, approached the "Pathetique." Temirkanov and friends savored the big tune of the opening movement with a flexible, loving devotion no Western orchestra could get away with without being accused of sentimentality; with the Russians, it seemed utterly natural, even inevitable. The sense of ineffable tragedy that hung over this reading gripped the audience in an emotional vise.

12.11.04
Chicago Tribune
John von Rhein

The Russian fire burns brightly

The Kansas City Star When Russia's most eminent conductor and its most prominent orchestra come to town for a program of Russian music, expectations are naturally going to be high.Saturday's Harriman Arts Program concert of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic did not disappoint.Conductor Yuri Temirkanov is today's most distinguished interpreter of Russian orchestral music, the operative word being interpreter. He truly sculpts music in ways that the composers might have imagined.The program began with Prokofiev's “Classical” Symphony, in which Temirkanov took the opportunity to clown a bit: He was facing the wrong direction when the first violins spit out their spiky second theme, causing him to whirl around in mock-surprise.Though some of the second and third movements strayed toward the mechanical at times, there was a sense of leisure and calm, a perfume of the Old World in which this orchestra is rooted. (It was founded in 1802.) They play with a bright, luscious tone — brilliantine strings, muscular brass and assertive winds (including a brash principal clarinet) that respond to every flick of Temirkanov's wrist. When he would lock his arms in an “O” shape and send a melody spinning into the air, the strings would swell right alongside him like dancers following a choreographer.Cellist Lynn Harrell took to the stage for Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto, a searing and emotional piece that daunted neither Harrell nor his colleagues. He played with a big, clear tone and a vibrato that always had a firm center despite being a bit wide for my taste.His musical grasp of the enigmatic cadenza was impressive. Temirkanov seemed to have subdued his own interpretive temperament in favor of Harrell's less extravagant one, which caused things to lapse into auto-pilot at times. The audience called back Harrell for a Bouree from Bach's Third Cello Suite.I vaguely dreaded having to sit through Tchaikovsky's ubiquitous Sixth Symphony, but Temirkanov piqued my imagination in the first bars and pulled me in. It was like a movie that suddenly makes you forget you're sitting in a theater.It brought back the conductor into full engagement, too: The outer movements burned with smoldering passion, with the strings growing organically from nothingness to a growling fortissimo and back to nothingness.The inner movements seemed too straightforward, perhaps, but this had the effect of making the fourth movement all the more tragic. It was not breast-beating tragedy, but instead a knowing and resigned sadness, like a tale of some dying hero.Arguably the best playing of the evening was in the single encore, from the finale of Elgar's “Enigma” Variations, which was played with buttery-rich grandeur.

15.11.04
The Kansas City Star
Paul Horsley

Russian group both dazzles and fizzles

To hear conductor Yuri Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic at their most sublime, a listener had to wait patiently until after the intermission of Saturday's concert in Davies Symphony Hall, the second of three programs presented as part of the San Francisco Symphony's Great Performers Series.
It happened several minutes into the first movement of Tchaikovsky's "Pathйtique" Symphony, where the tempo slows and the composer pours out one of his most glorious, heartfelt melodies. This kind of broad-beamed lyrical effusion is what orchestra and conductor do best, and the unfolding of this sumptuous theme was breathtaking.
The magic began even before the theme did, in the pregnant silence just preceding it -- a reverent hush that seemed to promise something luminous just around the bend. And there it was, uttered first by the strings and on later appearances by a solo clarinet, a tune that passed with gradually mounting ardor through the simplest of notes to achieve an almost mystical sheen.
Temirkanov resisted any urge to oversell the music. The intensification that comes in the second part of the theme -- a pair of compact, sigh-like gestures that crown the bigger sweep of the outer phrases -- emerged as if of its own volition, just through the slow accumulation of sound.
And what a sound it was! The strings pulsed with an almost unnatural plushness, the brass and woodwinds supported the tune with gracious subdued harmonies. It was breathtaking.

22.11.04
Chronicle
Joshua Kosman

DRAMATIC, ENTHRALLING EVENING
WITH THE ST. PETERSBURG PHILHARMONIC

The orchestra and violin soloist Vadim Repin delivered the program's tapestry of colors with poise, polish and entrancing sound.
Repin's exciting yet confident and refined interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto showed impeccable technique, daring without schmaltz and stunning virtuosity.
The entire program exposed the 120-piece orchestra's great talent and discipline. Though huge, the ensemble responded like a much smaller group.
Conductor Nikolai Alexeev took advantage of that flexibility often, guiding the orchestra with conservative yet effective direction, especially in the Dvorak and the two charming encores from Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker Suite."
Prokoviev's Suite from the "Love for Three Oranges" opened the program with a charismatic exhibition of the orchestra's skills - ranging from delicate to gutsy in typical modern harmonies and rhythms, ending in a well-paced and noble march.
Though Dvorak was Czech and not Russian, his Symphony No. 8 gave the Russian orchestra the opportunity to open its thrilling voice full throttle and shake Jackson Hall with welcome sound.

20.11.04
Sacramento Bee
Patricia Beach Smith

Concerts in Kaliningrad on August 17 and 18, 2004

«Kaliningrad rose in applause»

Arts festival «Baltic Seasons» in Kaliningrad Regional Drama Theatre featured two performances of St.-Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by national artist of the USSR Yuri Temirkanov.
Probably not everybody present at these concerts knew how lucky they were – it is nearly impossible now to see Temirkanov on the podium outside the capitals and not because of Maestro’s snobbery.
– For the last 10-15 years we only play in St.-Petersburg, Moscow and abroad, – Yuri Khatuevich told journalists at the press-conference few hours before the performance. – But not because we do not want to play in Russian towns. We cannot do so for economic reasons. And it is unlikely that things will change in the nearest future.
According to the Maestro, it is impossible not only to perform in Russia, but also to find musicians for the orchestra – our best musical talents go to Europe and the States once they stand on their own feet. And the foreigners do not want to work in an orchestra (even a very famous one with a renowned conductor) for a scanty (by their standards) payment.
Probably the situation in Russian culture determined the choice of works for the first performance of the orchestra in Kaliningrad. Mussorgsky’s «Songs and Dances of Death» and Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony e-moll hardly can be called cheerful.
Yuri Temirkanov is a unique conductor. An actor, he fascinated the auditorium, the orchestra has long given itself into his hands. The auditorium was electrified by Maestro’s expressiveness and inspiration, his specific conducting style, his ability to stop or to revive the music as if just by a simple look. The concert ended in ovation. Kaliningrad rose in applause for the musicians and Maestro Temirkanov.

19.08.04
Kaliningradskaya Pravda (Kaliningrad)
Irina Klimovich

Concerts in London on BBC Proms on August 2004

Yuri Temirkanov has headed the St Petersburg Philharmonic for so long- it is 16 years since he succeeded the legendary Mravinsky - that he must be credited with the maintenance of its remarkable standards. On the podium, no conductor is more solipsistic, but the control is genuine and the results fascinating, even if rarely absolutely convincing. Glinka's Valse-Fantaisie made a brilliantly imaginative start, played with restraint and refinement, perfectly evoking the aristocratic ballroom. Temirkanov kept his players on a tight rein in Prokofiev's fascinating Second Piano Concerto too, allowing attention to focus on Yefim Bronfman's gripping account of a solo part that somehow manages to simultaneously inhabit the aesthetic worlds of both pre- and post-revolutionary Russia. In Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony the verdict was more mixed. Propelled by an endlessly dynamic double-bass section and topped by authentically fruity Russian woodwind and brass playing, the virtuosity was at times breathtaking. Yet Temirkanov was determined to put his own quirky stamp on this high-speed reading, at times reducing Tchaikovsky to a kind of parody. It was magnificent and slightly ridiculous at the same time.

25.08.2004
«The Guardian»
Michael Billington

«Proms: authentically versatile»

… The second of their two Proms again marked the bicentenary of Glinka's birth, this time with the less well-known dance music from Act 3 of Ruslan and Lyudmila - silkily played and sounding more French than Russian. Siberian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky was then soloist in Shostakovich's orchestration of Musorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, using his theatrical manner to act out the drama. And the dance/death theme continued in the main work, Rakhmaninov's Symphonic Dances. Here, in a performance stronger on lyrical warmth than fizz, Temirkanov drew the most characteristically Russian sounds from his orchestra, revelling in its blend of unique colours.

25.08.2004
«The Daily Telegraph»
Matthew Rye

Concert in Essen on September 1, 2004

St.-Petersburg Orchestra brings Greetings from the East.

… But what we had in the program yesterday night: St.-Petersburg Orchestra, remarkably younger, which already as Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra was the main Russian Orchestra and has reached highs with legendary Mravinsky and Kurt Sanderling, fully dedicated itself to Eastern Music. The concert started with the impression of Russian morning from magnificent opera by Modest Mussorgsky “Khovanschina”. Finely woven, colourfully adorned and promising as the prelude to the night.
Temirkanov, who succeeded Mravinsky in 1988, conducts without a baton, that one can only afford if one has strongly convincing gestures. In reality Temirkanov has impact, with his abrupt gestures he can animate and inspire. He thickened the Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony e-moll (the one from the “New World”) with quick tempi, which made the phrasing of the first movement remarkably elegantly light.
Not too sweet, melancholic Largo with delicately profiled woodwind. Resilient and captivating Scherzo. And then primitive power in the swollen Finale. And in the second part skilful “Symphonic Dances” by Russia Sergey Rachmaninov, that Temirkanov needed to show at once all strengths of his orchestra: tight and flexible touch, not at least forced dash of brass, sensitively harmonic woodwind and sharpen percussions. In Rachmaninov’s last major work, with the dark middle movement complementing Sibelius’s “Valse triste” once again glitters the theme of Dies Irae. The day of wrath – this concert did not give any reason for this.

02.09.04
«Die Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung»
Michael Stenger

 

Concert in Vienna 22.02.04

«The Russians let it thunder»