Rachmaninoff Shostakovich Petrenko Andsnes

Stravinsky’s fairytale ballet transports you to a spellbinding, vibrant sound world, while Shostakovich tears you violently back with his social realist tribute to Lenin. Or you might do what Rachmaninov did — flee the revolution, and take the boat from Oslo to America as you lose yourself in piano reveries, here in the hands of the world renowned Norwegian pianist, Leif Over Andsnes.

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943) escaped the Bolsheviks and escaped by sea to America from Oslo in 1918, settling permanently in New York. His first piece following the crossing was his Piano Concerto No. 4 (1926), which is more jazzy and less well-known that his third piano concerto, but equally expressive and melodious, especially in the hands of an artist such as Andsnes.

Another Russian in exile, Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) revolutionised music with his ballets, which created a furore in Paris around the year 1910. In The Firebird (1910, 1919), Stravinsky leans on Rimsky-Korsakov’s storytelling tradiition, magical sounds, colourful orchestration and folk inspired melodies, with elements of modern gunpowder, particularly in the magician Kostschei’s Infernal Dance.

Gunpowder is also in evidence in Dmitri Shostakovich’s (1906-1975) Symphony No. 12, The Year 1917, composed in 1961 in memory of Lenin. Based on revolutionary songs, raw expressivity and unambiguous political content, this was his “reddest” symphony in thirty-five years. In the meantime he had lived in fear of his life and career under Stalin’s regime of terror.

This concert combines the colour red with blue tones and bewitched flames, and plenty of political commentary a century after the revolution which changed Europe forever. But first and foremost the programme showcases a selection of brilliant Russian orchestra music which will sweep you away.

(Text: Thomas Erma Møller; Photo: Trygve Indrelid)