Classical: BBC Philharmonic

The Independent – United Kingdom
Feb 12, 2005

Stuart Price

The young Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan renews his association
with the BBC Philharmonic this evening, in an all-Russian programme
helmed by Gianandrea Noseda (left), the orchestra’s principal conductor
and a guest conductor at Valery Gergiev’s Kirov in St Petersburg. The
19-year- old is soloist in Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No 1,
a work written for the Jewish violinist David Oistrakh in 1948 that
remained unperformed while Stalin was alive; its quoting of Jewish
melodies was a comment on the anti-semitism of the Soviet state.
The concert opens with Shostakovich’s orchestration of the Prelude
to Mussorgsky’s unfinished opera, Khovanshchina, and concludes with
Scriabin’s Symphony No 3, The Divine Poem. In a talk at 6.30pm, the
Independent’s Lynne Walker is in conversation with the music writer
David Nice about the work of Scriabin.

Bridgewater Hall, Lower Mosley St, Manchester (0161-907 9000) tonight,
7.30pm, pounds 7-pounds 28