Review: Russian Chamber Philharmonic, at Lichfield Cathedral

Jul 22 2010 By Richard Bratby

Extreme tempos; big, sweeping crescendos and decrescendos; no harpsichord; and oodles of thick, creamy vibrato. Well, that’s one way to play Bach’s E major violin concerto.

It’s just not one that we hear much in the west these days.

But performed at the centre of this Lichfield Festival concert, by violinist Michel Gershwin and the Russian Chamber Philharmonic under conductor Juri Gilbo, there was no getting around it: it sounded fantastic.

It was a useful reminder that period instrument groups don’t have a monopoly on baroque music – and that, for all the talk of the globalisation of orchestral sound, Russian performers still have an absolutely distinctive national tradition. The whole programme was delivered with the same combination of sonorous richness, virtuoso panache, and unreserved emotional generosity.

It didn’t always come off; details were lost in Grieg’s Holberg Suite, though Schnittke’s Suite in the Old Style was played with deadpan wit. Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue K.546 sounded like Beethoven in C minor mood.

But the RCP style and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings went together like vodka and caviare; breathtakingly flamboyant in the outer movements; vibrant with emotion in the whispered opening bars of the Élégie. Four – yes, four – encores were never so warmly deserved.

Rating: 4/5