The French and the Russians have always had a soft spot for each other – in music at least!
Rimsky-Korsakov, Saint-Saëns, Khachaturian – these are the composers who give us orchestral colour, sweeping melodies and vibrant exoticism, the composers who temper Germanic convention with brilliance and fantasy. Which all makes for a perfect match when we bring a Russian conductor and a French soloist together to perform vividly imagined music with an Oriental cast.
Let your imagination loose on the tender Adagio and thrilling dances that accompany Spartacus’s uprising. Surrender to the spinning violin solos and rich orchestral palette of Scheherazade’s nightly tales – a spirited heroine in an exotic world. And discover the charming panoramas of Saint-Saëns’ most evocative piano concerto, with its thudding steamship propellers and croaking frogs on the Nile.
KHACHATURIAN Spartacus: Suite
SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No.5 (Egyptian)
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Scheherazade
Alexander Lazarev conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet piano
Pre-concert talk by Yvonne Frindle in the Northern Foyer, 45 minutes before each performance.