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Reader rating
Description: Kari Kriikku joins the orchestra under Semyon Bychkov as they perform Magnus Lindberg's Clarinet Concerto. Works by Stravinsky and Rachmaninov complete the programme. Pre-Prom Talk, 6pm. Christopher Cook talks to Marcus Lindberg.
Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony, commemorating the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917 but evoking the failed insurrection of 1905, rarely finds its way onto concert programmes.
Its long passages of brooding introspection are far from audience-friendly but in his fiercely compelling performance with the BBC Symphony Orchestra Semyon Bychkov turned that shortcoming into a virtue.
Those extended processionals became breathless anticipations of the conflicts of insurrectionists and Tsarist troops.
With drum tattoos and muted trumpet fanfares crisply delivered, the narrative thrust of the work was clearly, almost cinematically, delineated.
It took three men to smother the final clanging of the large bells (four of them), symbolic of historical forces beyond humanity, bringing to a suitably graphic end an outstandingly cogent performance of an epic.
There was drama, too, in Detlev Glanert's Shoreless River, appropriately enough, as some of the material is shared with Glanert's opera-in-progress The Wooden Ship.
Like the Shostakovich, it is a score that unfolds over a broad canvas - coincidentally ending also with a bell stroke, albeit a hushed evocation of old ships' bells.
Perhaps, unlike the Shostakovich, it's a work that could be programmed far more frequently, especially if performed with the concentrated intensity that Bychkov and the BBCSO brought to it.
Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is never likely to lack an audience. Bychkov's account shifted eloquently from the diabolic to the romantic.
The young Russian pianist Denis Matsuev brought a somewhat clangorous brand of virtuosity to the solo part but his phrasing of the well-known 18th Variation was inspirational.
To be broadcast on Radio 3 on 1 September, 2.30pm.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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