Kirill Mahle

The Berliner Philharmoniker’s contribution to the great Russian composer’s anniversary year places a landmark performance of his perennially popular C minor Concerto by Kirill Gerstein and Kirill Petrenko in the illuminating context of his solo music.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Trio in A minor, Op. 50, was written in Rome between December 1881 and late January 1882. It is subtitled À la mémoire d’un grand artiste [In memory of a great artist], in reference to Nikolai Rubinstein, his close friend and mentor, who had died on 23 March 1881. It is scored for piano, violin, and cello.

Tchaikovsky - almost alone - saw the possibilities of specially-composed music for the classical ballet, which was hugely popular in nineteenth-century Russia. His secret was to work closely with his choreographer and link music and dance routines at the outset: this proved vital to the stage action and the final success of the whole production. Swan Lake was the first, and Nutcracker the last of Tchaikovsky’s three ballet scores. Following the success of Sleeping Beauty came the request for another ballet, which eventually formed a double-bill with his opera Yolanta. Tchaikovsky agreed, unusually, that some of the Nutcracker music could be played at an orchestral concert before the ballet opened in St Petersburg. At the concert, an enthusiastic audience encored almost every number.

Tabea Zimmermann and Kirill Gerstein return to the studio to record the follow-up to their highly praised first duo album. The new disc includes spellbinding performances of three late works by significant 19th century composers: Brahms mature Sonata in F minor, Schubert s melancholic Arpeggione Sonata, and Franck s splendid Sonata in A major, all masterly performed on viola.

In their third edition together, the Berliner Philharmoniker and chief conductor Kirill Petrenko pay homage to Sergei Rachmaninoff on the 150th anniversary of his birth.

Even with 15 other versions of Rimsky's masterpiece of orchestral virtuosity to choose from — some in the top flight — this was recognized from the first as one of the most rewarding, thanks largely to Krebbers's exceptionally sweet, gently appealing and bewitching personification of the story - spinning Scheherazade and to Kondrashin's skill in pacing and shaping movements as a whole, relating the diverse tempos and building up tension and dynamics by careful control so as to create climaxes of thrilling intensity and power. the 'shipwreck' finale, in particular, was overwhelming; and this was achieved without resorting to the ultra - fast tempos adopted by some conductors to whip up excitement. The Concertgebouw's crisp, sonorous and sensitive playing (full marks both to the splendid strings and to the wind soloists) was caught with the utmost fidelity; but the Compact Disc's total exclusion even of minimal extraneous background now marks a still further improvement, as can be judged by the dead silence against which Scheherazade's pleadings are heard. The final coda is ravishingly beautiful.

Shostakovich is not a composer the Berlin Philharmonic has regularly recorded, so this new album of Symphonies Nos 8, 9 and 10 is warmly welcome. Taped with a limited audience during the Covid pandemic, the Philharmonic’s chief conductor Kirill Petrenko combines a riveting precision with expressive intensity in his interpretation of the expansive Eighth Symphony. The succinct Ninth has plenty of crisply sardonic woodwind commentary, as in the brilliantly played third movement while the Tenth packs a formidably powerful punch, especially in a highly charged account of the second movement “Allegro.” In truth, it’s doubtful if there are better played performances of any of these symphonies on record, and Petrenko’s consistently cogent view of the music compels attention.

A historic version of the patriotic October cantata by Prokofiev plus only the second public performance of Shostakovich's 13th Symphony on December 20, 1962, using the original text by Yevtushenko, which pays tribute to murdered Jews in the Ukrainian ravine of Babi Yar.