This was Russian night for the Philharmonia: Vasily Petrenko on the podium, Nikolai Lugansky at the keyboard. But before the blockbusters by Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev came something delicate: Liadov's The Enchanted Lake. This miniature tone-poem paints an understated picture, with tiny harp sweeps throwing reflections off a lake of rippling strings; given the same notes to orchestrate, Liadov's teacher Rimsky-Korsakov might have used a richer palette. But its restraint is part of its charm.
Restraint is not a word often associated with Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, yet the way Lugansky's playing combined muscle with a certain coolness suited it beautifully. In the first movement, the composer throws out tunes by the handful, as if to see what will stick; Lugansky's ability to pick out the melodic line, to nurture and shape it within a cloud of accompanying notes, was extraordinary. In the second movement, he followed Tchaikovsky's request for simplicity, dodging the temptation to indulge in distant effects; and he dispatched the obsessive figures at the start of the finale like a well-oiled motor.
For his part, Petrenko paced the crescendo at the start of the final section brilliantly, cranking up the tension. Lugansky's encore, Medtner's Canzona Serenata, showed another, more wistful side to his playing, but still highlighted that amazing gift for sustaining a melody.
When Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony was premiered in 1944, it was preceded by ceremonial cannon fire – but it can hardly have sounded much more dramatic back then than it did here. The first two movements seemed symphonies in their own right, with Petrenko's red-blooded interpretation making perfect sense of the work's uneasy marriage of celebration and foreboding. Mostly, his beat was huge and fluid, all elbows and big hands; but in the second movement everything was in his shimmying shoulders, from the lower strings' self-important oompah to the touches of violin glitter above. The orchestra responded to every gesture.
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