Press / NPR in USA It was impossible not to feel, Tuesday night at Roy Thomson Hall, how immeasurably poorer symphonic music would be without its Russian component. The National Philharmonic of Russia, conducted by Vladimir Spivakov, presented… familiar pieces by Tchaikovsky, Liadov, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. But heard together, played by these Russian musicians.., they added up to something more distinctive and arresting than their parts. Here, in a concentrated format, was music not just different in its colour and effects from the German, the Italian, the French, the Spanish, the English. Its blood was somehow redder, its identity more vivid.Then there were the performances, with every player at full stretch, hearts on sleeves, the pride in their music and their execution of it quite palpable. It was as if the music were not so much analyzed and presented as understood and communicated. It was all magically new-minted, very engaging, very exciting. We don't ordinarily hear orchestral concerts of this concentrated ownership and singularity and commitment in Toronto.Ken Winters, Globe and Mail, 30.04.2009 |
JULY 2010 
