Visiting Orchestra – Gathering Note

By Philippa Kiraly

On tour around the country, the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra made a stop at Benaroya Hall, Sunday night. It seems as though Seattle’s Russian community turned out for it in droves—I heard little English spoken that night, and it was a deeply attentive audience.

The two halves of the program were separated by close to two centuries, the first half containing the Symphony No. 4 in D Minor (called “La Casa del Diavolo,” or “The House of the Devil”) by Boccherini from 1771, and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 in E Flat Major from only six years later. The two works of the second half were composed even more closely together: Schnittke’s Sonata for violin, chamber orchestra and harpsichord, transformed from his own 1963 sonata for violin, and Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony in C Minor, arranged under his aegis by Rudolf Barshai from his 1960 Eighth String Quartet, Op 110.
Continue reading Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra lives up to its name

By R.M. Campbell

The Russian National Orchestra spends a good share of its collective life on the road. Since its founding, in 1990, the ensemble has spurned government funding, perhaps unique in all of Europe, in favor of American style private funding. Inevitably it has an international board that insist on an international profile.

It is not a stranger to Seattle. One of the great virtues of Benaroya Hall has been that there is now time and space for orchestras other than the Seattle Symphony. They are a principal highlight of the SSO season, some orchestras greater than others admittedly, but none is shabby. The Russian National Orchestra is among the best. Led by its founding music director, the pianist Mikhail Pletnev, the ensemble did a mostly Russian program Wednesday night: Tchaikovsky’s “Elegy” and Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony. The concerto du jour belonged to Dvorak which seems almost Russian because of its long identification with the late Mikhail Rostropovich. The cellist at Benaroya was Russian — a young virtuoso of great talent, Sergey Antonov.

Continue reading Russian National Orchestra plays glorious concert Wednesday