The Independent, UK
February 12, 2005

CLASSICAL: BBC PHILHARMONIC

by 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