No Russian orchestra has a finer pedigree than the St Petersburg Philharmonic. Its greatest days as the Leningrad Philharmonic – under its music director for half a century, the legendary Yevgeny Mravinsky – may be Soviet history now, but it has maintained its place in the first rank of European orchestras. Yuri Temirkanov took over from Mravinsky in 1988 and was due to conduct this latest UK tour, but had to withdraw because of illness. His place was taken by Vassily Sinaisky, who is no stranger to the orchestra, or to British audiences.
Sinaisky left the programmes unchanged, and for its Birmingham visit that meant Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Mahler. There was something familiar yet fresh about the performance of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony that began the concert – familiar because everything in this fundamentally mechanical piece ran on perfectly oiled wheels, fresh in that Sinaisky ensured no detail was overlooked and none of its knowing wit was missed. After that, Freddy Kempf’s account of Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto had urgency and excitement. There’s a bit more introspection in parts of the opening Allegro and in the Intermezzo than Kempf admitted, but his assaults on the first-movement cadenza and the finale were so irresistible that it hardly mattered. The orchestra, meanwhile, supplied exactly the kind of tangy, deep-toned backdrop the performance required.
Mahler’s Fourth Symphony was less convincing. A bizarre history of the St Petersburg Philharmonic printed in the programme wrongly claimed the orchestra had given the first performance of Mahler’s First Symphony (and of Bruckner’s Ninth and Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, too!). But this account of the Fourth suggested there was not much of a tradition of performing Mahler behind it. String and brass textures particularly sounded more like Tchaikovsky than Mahler. Even the majestic climax of the slow movement lacked the intensity it should project. Anna Devin was the very capable soprano in the finale’s vision of a child’s heaven, though that also seemed a bit too comfortable and straightforward.
• At Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, 1 February; Leeds Town Hall, 2 February; and Anvil, Basingstoke, 3 February.
