Amar Quartet plays Tchaikovsky, Kings Place 18 May 2012

Tchaikovsky: String Quartets Nos. 1 and 3

Amar Quartet

'[Tchaikovsky's] chamber music...is not held in high esteem...for various reasons: weakness of form, unbalanced texture, inconsistency, and a tendency to...grand dramatic gestures best designed for large musical forces.' Audience members reading this in the programme note prior to this evening's concert are unlikely to have had high expectations for what was to follow. I'd say the assessment is unfair; Tchaikovsky's chamber works may be uneven, but the genius that shines through in the ballets and symphonies is just as evident here. That said, the programme included works from both ends of the spectrum, the Third Quartet, a work as fine as any Tchaikovsky wrote, and the First, which, to put it mildly, is not.

The First Quartet can work, just listen to the Borodin Quartet's recording, but it really needs a helping hand. Tchaikovsky doesn't specify enough variety of tempo or dynamic in the outer movements, and unless these are supplied by the performers the result can sound like 'grand dramatic gestures best designed for large musical forces.' That, sadly, was the impression this performance gave, with continuous and oppressive tutti textures beating the audience into submission. This, combined with some seriously insecure passage work from the first violinist, only confirmed the programme note's ominous predictions.

Fortunately, the music making in the inner movements of this First Quartet, and throughout the Third, was of a consistently higher order. The reason why the First Quartet retains a toehold in the repertoire is its folksong-inspired second movement. This was played immaculately, and with a sensitivity that you wouldn't have thought the ensemble capable if you'd only heard the first movement. And the scherzo third movement had a real sense of energy and buoyancy, and again a unity of ensemble and purpose from the players that brought the music to life.

The Third Quartet was given a consistently inspired performance, and was far more enjoyable all round. But then, it is a much better piece, and the composer must share some of the responsibility for disappointing performances of the First. But the Third is both idiomatically written for string quartet and filled with invention and originality. The higher standard of performance may be due to greater familiarity on the part of the players, but if so, they were still able to keep it fresh. The one failing of this performance was a slight lack of muscle. Tchaikovsky's melodies here are angular and impassioned, and really need to feel the heel of the bow on the downbeats. The players here achieved the impassioned pathos, especially in the famous third movement, but the music lacked the sense of physical intensity that defines the work as Russian.

This was a rare visit to the UK by the Zurich-based Amar Quartet. They are apparently Hindemith specialists, which may explain why invitations from this most Hindemith-phobic of countries are so few. But they are a lively ensemble with a distinctively bright and attractive sound. Look out for them.

Janine Jansen performs Schoenberg and Schubert, Wigmore Hall 16 May 2012

Janine Jansen (violin), Boris Brovtsyn (violin), Amihai Grosz (viola), Maxim Rysanov (viola), Torleif Thedéen (cello), Jens Peter Maintz (cello)

Schoenberg: Verklärte Nacht

Schubert: String Quintet in C Major

The Janine Jansen All-Stars are not like other chamber ensembles. In fact, they are hardly an ensemble at all. Everything they play is perfectly coordinated of course, but you rarely get the feeling that the group is working as a single entity. Instead, these revered soloists perform, for the most part, as soloists. Every phrase in every part is presented with emotion bordering on pathos, and nothing is treated as filler. Everything matters.

The benefits of this sort of approach are manifold, but there are plenty of problems too. Fortunately, the works chosen for this tour, Verklärte Nacht and Schubert's C Major Quintet, have both the quality and the complexity the group needs to show off its many strengths, both collective and individual. The Schoenberg comes off best – the piece is meaty enough to offer something substantial for all of these heavyweights to get their teeth into – but Schubert also benefits from the sheer quantity of musical talent on the stage.

The unity of ensemble and of intent between the players was clearly hard-won, and everything in this performance felt well rehearsed, even over rehearsed. Despite the multiplicity of interpretive angles from within the ensemble, a clear and singular musical vision was apparent throughout, and this presumably came from Jansen. Tempos and dynamics were often extreme, suggesting dictatorial decision making at the rehearsal stage rather than committee thinking. And clarity of texture was an over-riding concern throughout, a quality that benefited the Schoenberg more than it did the Schubert.

Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht is at least as well known in its orchestral arrangement, leading some performers of the sextet version to expand the textures and go for a large, all-embracing sound. Not so Jansen and her colleagues. Everything here was about the detail. There was plenty of expression too, but this was always balanced by a concern for exact intonation, tonal purity and musical architecture. The solo qualities of each of the players often worked to the benefit of Schoenberg's variegated textures. He often has three or four completely different textures going on at once, so having players on each part who can really keep those ideas separate and individual gives the music the sense of inner variety it regularly relies on.

For the whole of the first half, the players leant forward in their seats, the intensity of the music always reflected in their body language. When they returned after the interval, I was expecting to see some more relaxed postures, some sitting back and letting the music flow. But no, the Schubert turned out to be just as intense, and was presented with similarly furrowed brows. Tempos and dynamics were just as extreme as in the Schoenberg, but this time the results seemed more stilted and less in the spirit of the music itself. True enough, the quiet moments of both pieces, the opening of the Schoenberg for example, and the opening of Schubert's adagio, rely on stillness tinged with foreboding. But Schubert doesn't do things on the same scale. And while the tempos and dynamics were extreme, the vibrato and rubato were strictly controlled. In many ways, the Schubert was performed according to Classical-era performing conventions, but at any point the music was louder, quieter, faster or slower than almost any version on record.

Janine Jansen was billed as the star of this concert, but there weren't many occasions in the programme for her to show off her skills. The opening of Schubert's adagio was one. Here, the ensemble played the theme and accompaniment relatively straight, while Jansen performed the obbligato with a satisfyingly wide range of attacks and colours. Similarly with the main theme of the finale. Here Jansen was able to keep the main theme sounding rustic, but the detail with which she articulated the phrases, and even the individual notes, marked this out as the playing of an exceptional violinist.

If the Schoenberg succeeded better than the Schubert in this programme, it was mainly because Schubert's music doesn't respond as well to extremes. The coherency of the C Major Quintet was regularly tested by overly long pauses, unrelated tempos between sections, and extreme dynamic contrasts that prevented sections and phrases from relating to the passages around them. However, Schoenberg seems to respond well to this approach. The clarity that these players brought to Verklärte Nacht may have prevented it from sounding mysterious when it should have, let alone nocturnal, but the sheer quantity of musical interest that it revealed outweighed any reservations.

Gergiev conducts Stravinsky, LSO, Barbican 11 May 2012

Stravinsky: Mass, Violin Concerto, The Firebird (complete ballet)

Stravinsky always sounds like Stravinsky, but that doesn't mean a concert dedicated to his music is in any danger of monotony. Gergiev's programme for this evening was brilliantly thought out. It worked in reverse chronology from 1948 to 1910. That meant a gradual increase in Romantic expression, from the austerity of the Mass, through the lively neoclassicism of the Violin Concerto to the perennial and fantastical Firebird. He could have taken the idea further, by starting with the Requiem Canticles perhaps, but the composer's musical evolution was amply demonstrated, and made all the clearer for this retrograde approach.

It is rare to hear Stravinsky's Mass performed by such a large choir, and the larger numbers must increase the potential problems of synchronisation. But the LSO Chorus were on top form this evening, giving sharp edges to all those austere and emphatic phrases. In fact, the balance worked well between the ten players and the 50/60ish singers. (That was another interesting progression through the programme, the gradual increase of instrumental forces from piece to piece.) Soloists were drawn from the choir, which was an excellent decision. Not only did the singers rise to the challenge, but they did so with all the modesty that the work requires, and that you couldn't imagine from professional soloists. Good playing from the small ensemble too, austere and rugged, but always lively and sensitive. Among the orchestral sections, the heroes of this evening were the trombones and bassoons. They were busy in every work, and fitted into the various styles magnificently.

The Stravinsky Violin Concerto is a work that seems to adapt to the individual merits of whichever violinist performs it. Leonidas Kavakos has a precise and focussed sound – essential in any Stravinsky – but what really makes his playing special is the rich, woody tone he produces, especially on the lower strings. Stravinsky highlights this fine sound by regularly coupling the soloist with the woodwind section, and when Kavakos is playing that's a match made in heaven. Having heard him in a number of Romantic concertos, I know he can make much more noise than he did this evening. But he toned it down to match Stravinsky's Classical orchestra and the balance was ideal. Just like the choir in the Mass, Kavakos gave a performance that balanced neoclassical reserve with nimble energy. Perhaps he seemed a little frustrated by the formality of the inner movements, but when we reached the finale in became clear that he'd been saving up his energies for this final lively dance. Gergiev loosened the reins a little here, and the synchronisation between soloist and orchestra sometimes went a little awry. The last chord was also out of kilter. But none of that really mattered as it was the vitality and sprightly rhythmic energy of what had gone before that stuck in the memory.

The Firebird is the only one of Stravinsky's ballets that is more often performed as a suite than in its complete form. As with almost everything the composer did, financial motivations should be suspecting in his decision to make a suite arrangement of the work. Or were there musical motivations too? It is true that, unlike Petrushka and The Rite of Spring, this ballet can have longueurs when heard in concert. Or at least, the more memorable sections are separated by long passages of what can only be described as mood music.

But if anybody can make a case for the concert performance of the entire ballet, it's Gergiev. He's in his element with early Stravinsky, and the performance he led this evening of the ballet was of the highest order. He knows that to make the piece work in concert, it needs to be paced – and there needs to be a symphonic relationship between the various sections in terms of tempos and dynamics. He also makes a point of not over-emphasising the more dramatic music, not slowing down in the build-ups, and never taking the quieter dynamics lower than they need to go. This, plus an intense feeling of concentration and focus from the podium, allowed the orchestra to maintain the atmosphere throughout the work. So no longueurs to speak of, and no day-dreaming about how much more interesting this would be with dancers. In fact, the atmosphere in the hall was electric, and you could see people in the audience sitting up in their seats in rapped attention every time a new section or theme was introduced.

Gergiev has pursued an increasingly diverse musical path in recent years, taking in music from a wide range of countries and eras. But he's at his best when he's conducting late 19^th and early 20^th century Russian repertoire. And, as this evening demonstrated, when it comes to Stravinsky – he's the daddy.

Jerusalem Quartet and Alexander Melnikov play Schumann, Wigmore Hall 9 May 2012

Jerusalem Quartet, Alexander Melnikov

Schumann: Piano Quartet in Eb Op.47

Schumann: Piano Quintet in Eb Op.44

They were clearly expecting trouble at the Wigmore Hall this evening. Patrons entered the building under the watchful eye of two security guards, and the number of uniformed staff patrolling the foyers inside was unusually high. The reason? Pro-Palestinian demonstrators have made it a tradition to disrupt performances by the Jerusalem Quartet. Their most high-profile hit was at this very venue last year, so the management had every reason to be cautious.

In the event, no disruptions occurred, which was just as well for all present, as the performance was to a very high standard indeed, and distractions would have been deeply frustrating. In fact, music-lovers on the south coast may have borne the brunt of the Wigmore's diligence. The quartet played in Brighton last night, and as the Wigmore was clearly on high alert, the protesters went there instead to make a nuisance of themselves.

To be fair to the Wigmore Hall, the extra security measures were very discrete. The security guards were all immaculately dressed, and the programme itself wasn't affected in the slightest. And what a programme it was! The Jerusalem Quartet are rightly famous for the intensity and focus of their interpretations, and Schumann's chamber music is the ideal vehicle for their considerable talents. Alexander Melnikov is another intense and passionate performer who plays any 19^th century German music as if it had been written just for him.

But how does a piano soloist of such idiosyncratic distinction fit into a chamber ensemble? The answer on this occasion was – very well indeed. It turns out that the musical virtues that elevate the Jerusalem Quartet above most of the competition are very similar to those that make Melnikov such an individual at the keyboard. Both treat rubato as the rule rather than the exception. And both regularly go to dynamic extremes, but without letting the rhythmic precision or the measured phasing suffer in the process.

The Op.47 Quartet casts each of the players as individuals, only begrudgingly bringing them together for homogeneous tuttis. In other hands, the textures can seem bare, but the tonal weight of each of these players ensures a feeling of intensity in every phrase. It is clear that the three string players have spent hundreds of hours performing together, to the extent that they sound like the same musician, playing violin, viola and cello respectively. Melnikov is obviously at a disadvantage here, but he's on the same musical wavelength. His playing is big-boned, very physical and very legato. Schumann gives the players a hand by always carefully balancing the piano against the ensemble, and despite Melnikov's 'Russian' dynamics, he rarely dominated the textures.

There was great communication between Melnikov and the cellist, Kyril Zlotnikov, with the piano left hand synchronising skilfully with the cello's bass lines. That didn't always quite work though. In the slow movement of the Quartet, Melnikov got ahead of the strings, a problem that remained for a surprisingly long time. The string playing wasn't note perfect either. All of them had moments of insecure passage work and questionable tuning on individual notes. But these really were isolated incidents, and the sheer musicality of the performance more than compensated.

The more famous Op.44 Quintet sounded almost symphonic when performed with this level of physical intensity and dynamic extremes. There was nothing safe about this performance. In the development section of the first movement, Melnikov really took liberties with the tempos, at one point winding down the ostinato until it gradually reached a standstill, then kicking back in with the next phrase at tempo. Fortunately, the quartet was able to keep track, not limiting Melnikov's indulgences, but closely following every one.

The combination of extreme dynamics and thick legato briefly threatened the agility of the scherzo, which sounded a little muddy in the opening bars. But precise articulation of the phrases had the effect of delineating the music's structure and giving the movement the sense of direction it needed. And the finale was a triumph, the precision of the playing and the shared sense of musical purpose bringing everything together for a thrilling and fitting finale.

The concert formed part of a UK tour, promoting a new CD. It is no coincidence then, that the disc on sale in the foyer shared its programme with the concert itself. No doubt the players will have sorted out the small ensemble and tuning issues in the studio. And given the track record of both quartet and pianist, they are all supremely able to recreate the excitement of the recital hall on disc. So if the concert was designed to generate interest in the new CD, it worked – on me anyway. Although I haven't heard the disc myself, I'd say the chances are it is going to something special. Buy it.

LPO, Jurowski, Helmchen play Janacek, Dvorak, Suk, RFH 2 May 2012

Janacek (arr. Talich): Suite, The Cunning Little Vixen

Dvorak: Piano Concerto

Suk: Symphonic Poem, Ripening

London Philharmonic

Vladimir Jurowski conductor

Martin Helmchen piano

You couldn't accuse Vladimir Jurowski of taking an easy route through the Czech repertoire. The Cunning Little Vixen Suite, quirky and esoteric as it is, was undoubtedly the most audience-friendly work on this evening's programme. That was followed by Dvorak's fascinating, but long and involved, Piano Concerto, and Suk's equally intense and even more lengthy Ripening. The results were richly rewarding, but almost infinite resources of stamina were required from all concerned.

The London Philharmonic are going to know Janacek's Little Vixen very well by the end of the summer. Talich's suite from the opera opened this concert, they are performing extracts from the opera at a children's event next week, and then they are doing a run of the full opera at Glyndebourne. Naturally, the orchestra is equal to the many unusual challenges that Janacek sets. Jurowski is not as fluid as Mackerras, or even Rattle, with this music, but he has an equal interest in the strange textures that Janacek draws from the orchestra. Bringing the band up onto the stage gives the audience the chance to see the bizarre groupings that the composer brings together. It also makes the balance slightly less string-focussed than in the theatre. But the results remain as beguiling and as charmingly rustic as ever.

Dvorak's Piano Concerto is a difficult piece on every level. It shares much with the concertos of Beethoven and Brahms, including their faults. Like those great Germans, Dvorak puts down a wantonly unpianistic piano part, and then accompanies it with a symphony orchestra, who for the most part seem to be playing a symphony. But there is much to commend the piece, not least the slow movement, which contains many moments of supreme beauty. And the orchestration, while it is occasionally heavy, makes excellent use of the ensemble.

Martin Helmchen has made the concerto one of his calling cards in the few years that he has been on the international scene. Technically, he breezes through the piece, which considering the sheer quantity of notes in the piano part is a considerable achievement. He also has a very lyrical and romantic mode of expression, which allows the quieter music to really flow. But something is missing, and I think it is to do with the musical rhetoric behind the piece. Very often, Dvorak relies on a theatrical flourish from the pianist to make a structurally significant statement, such as the entrance of the second subject in the slow movement, or piano solo at the opening of the finale – taken straight out of Brahms' First Concerto. Helmchen's refinement and sophistication stand in the way of these grand gestures. Or perhaps it's just a volume issue, but for the size of the orchestra Dvorak sets him up against, he needs to hit those keys harder, especially in the finale.

When a piece has a name as unmemorable as Ripening, it's a fair bet that the music itself is also going to fade from the memory quite fast. This is one of Suk's symphonic poems that followed his more significant (and memorable) Asrael. Like its predecessor, it is a huge orchestral work, musically complex and intensely dramatic. Suk's approach to orchestration here seems to be to have every musician playing almost all of the time. Even the quiet coda involves the whole orchestra playing quietly. Nevertheless, the orchestration is always interesting, and a good performance like this one can bring out the continuous variety in these tutti textures. The bass trombone, for example, has a fabulous part, as does the tuba. And the orchestral piano is put to a variety of interesting uses. An offstage choir is brought in towards the end, as is a group of off-stage trumpets, but both are woefully underused, and it was hard to tell why they were there.

More clarity from the acoustic might have helped to bring out these details, but Jurowski and his forces did everything in their power to give this work its due. Like the pieces in the first half, it is not the sort of score that allows an orchestra to show off without having to work, but the preparation and the musical sensitivity here from everybody helped to bring this music to life. Do they deserve their obscurity? Perhaps, but they're worth hearing every once in a while, especially when performed to this standard.

Laufenberg's Meistersinger at Cologne Opera

Famous operas tend to pick up baggage along the way, and none more so than those of Richard Wagner. The mythological settings of most Wagner's operas and musicdramas allow modern directors plenty of scope to add in ideas relating to the works' reception history and to the multiple politicised readings they have been subject to over the years. The Nazis, of course, loom large in many productions of this sort, but given their wholesale ideological re-appropriation of Wagner's art, there are still plenty of issue here to work through.

Meistersinger has remained largely untouched by such revisionist tendencies. The historical rather than mythological setting seems to have insulated it somewhat, but that doesn't explain the apparent denial from almost the whole of the opera world of the central status this work, and especially its finale, played in Nazi pageantry. Things appeared to have changed in 2007 with Katharina Wagner's production at Bayreuth. Her confrontational, even angry, approach to the work and its history at the house seems proportionate in retrospect, but in won few friends, even among critics usually sympathetic to such treatments.

Even so, the production seemed like a turning point in the history of Meistersinger. Surely after this any traditional production would seem hopelessly naïve – or worse. But no, the opera world has remained largely unperturbed, and Meistersinger still remains the only one of Wagner's mature operas to be routinely performed in its original setting and in productions that seek only to project Wagner's own message, without further comment or criticism.

Katharina Wagner was clearly making a statement with her Meistersinger, the first opera she had directed at Bayreuth since taking the helm there. Two years later, in 2009, the theatre director Uwe Eric Laufenberg took over as Intendant at Cologne Opera. He too began with a Meistersinger. Like Katharina's, his is clearly a statement of intent, with less shock tactics perhaps, but certainly moulding the work into a narrative paradigm entirely of his own making. He has a different agenda, but one that also requires the opera to acknowledge how its status and meaning have changed in the century and a half since its premiere.

Laufenberg clearly has big plans for Cologne Opera, and he uses Meistersinger as his manifesto. This is a very dangerous strategy, but then taking risks is obviously a big part of his plan for the company. 'Oper für alle' is his slogan, and he plays out the work as an illustration of how the people of Cologne can get involved with the medium, and, more importantly, what it has to offer them.

The crucial element of this plan is the idea that Walther is a member of the audience who is drawn into the stage action having originally just come to see the show. Laufenberg could have made much more out of this idea, but it is presented quite literally at the start of the show. As the lights go down, a mobile phone is heard going off in the stalls, followed by somebody taking loudly into it. This of course, is Walther, and when he does take the stage, he is in modern dress, while everybody else is in 16^th century garb, and he is taking pictures all the time on his mobile phone.

So, in effect, everything here is taking place in the present. To emphasise that idea, the stage at the start of the show is completely clear. The curtains are drawn just before the overture starts, and when they reopen, a traditional 16^th century setting for the first act has been set up. But everything in the historical setting is provisional, which is forcibly demonstrated at the end of the first and second acts, when a key piece of the staging comes down to reveal the empty stage behind.

It is one of those productions that starts in the period in which the work is set, then moves forward historically in each act up to the present day. There is nothing particularly original about that, it's a fairly standard regietheater conceit, but Laufenberg has good reason to follow that plan here. He sets the second act in the Biedermeier period. Again, that's not particularly radical for Meistersinger, and it called to mind last year's Glyndebourne production. But it did bring a sense of foreboding about what might be lined up for Act Three.

This where Laufenberg's revisionist tendencies really kick in. So much so that it is difficult to understand why the first two acts are presented in such a conventional way. Act Three scene one is set in the 1950s, and this is where all the issues of post-war rehabilitation for the work play out. It is now clear that the opera has baggage, and this is represented literally in the form of a sea chest containing a model of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, a model of the set for this act, some Nazi flags etc. Tensions now start to appear between the work and the interpretation, but there is enough common ground for it to function. So Sachs, instead of reflecting on the riot at the end of Act Two, is now reflecting on the war and its aftermath.

In the finale, Laufenberg takes his biggest gamble yet, setting the song contest in modern day Cologne, on the Offenbach Platz outside the opera house. You might think that presenting the people of Cologne to the people of Cologne would require a good deal of tact. But then, they're a famously liberal lot and he doesn't feel any need to pander to them, instead presenting the crowd as a fairly proletarian rabble, but one with a great interest in the contest and its outcome. We get some reality TV type coverage, with the mastersiners introduced through a series of television trailers.

The actual contest seems almost a distraction from Laufenberg's applied narrative, and this is the one great weakness of the concept. He finds meaningful roles for Walther and Sachs in his scenario, but everybody else is expected to play out their parts as if this were a traditional production.

Predictably, the crucial point for Laufenberg's reading is Sach's concluding oration. By now, it has become clear that the German values that the mastersingers uphold are defined by history as much as by tradition. When Sachs implores Walther to respect his German masters, the screen behind show images ranging from Durer to Bueys, with Stockhausen and even Jimi Hendrix thrown in.

But the vital ingredient here is the idea that innovation is at the heart of tradition. That's the moral of the opera, and Laufenberg cleverly uses it to redeem the work of its Nazi connotations. The whole of the third act plays on the idea that everything that came before is open to interpretation, and that modern views on German culture and values need not correspond with those imposed by the Nazis. The section of Sach's oration where he laments the invasion of German lands by foreign forces is turned on its head by the inclusion of Nazi imagery here, as if it is they who have occupied the German cultural values, now redeemed.

And most impressively of all, this final scene focuses wholly on the present. The Nazi thing is acknowledged and worked through, but never dwelt on, certainly not to the same extent as the Katharina Wagner production. Instead, the ending is all about the inclusivity of art and culture, and of opera in particular. So a reconciliation is enacted between Sachs and Beckmesser, and the mastersingers all come down from their podium and mingle with the crowd. At last the message of the production comes fully into alignment with the message of the opera. Laufenberg may have democratised the idea a bit more than Wagner would have been inclined to, but both are driving home the idea that culture sits at the heart of society, and that artistic innovations can benefit all.

Verdi Requiem Mariinsky Opera, Gergiev, Barbican 4 April 2012

Verdi Requiem

Victoria Yastrebova soprano

Olga Borodina mezzo

Sergey Semishkur tenor

Ildar Abdrazkov bass

Mariinsky Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Valery Gergiev conductor

So, it turns out the Mariinsky's Verdi sounds just as Russian as its Wagner. That isn't a bad thing necessarily – in these diverse times there's room for many interpretations – but it does take some getting used to.

Gergiev has brought a relatively small ensemble with him from St Petersburg. For the most part, they punch above their weight, but that still doesn't explain why he has programmed some of the largest-scale works in the repertoire: Parsifal, Mahler 8 and, this evening, Verdi's Requiem. Fortunately, they never really sound underpowered, but there are gradations of timbre as well as volume needed here, and a small orchestra trying to sound like a large one can only offer so much tonal variety.

The choir was also surprisingly small, although you'd struggle to get a larger one on the Barbican stage. For my money, the choral singers were the real stars of this performance. They are a well trained group, with excellent ensemble and internal balance. When planning this sort of tour, Gergiev and his Mariinsky colleagues presumably assume they can take greater chances elsewhere knowing that they can rely on strong support from the back of the stage.

The orchestra consisted of full-sized woodwind brass sections, a timpanist, a bass drummer, and a surprisingly small group of strings, with six desks of firsts and three of cellos. Again, the ensemble here was excellent, although perhaps not quite up to the world-class standards of most London orchestras. The woodwind section got a bit lost in the melee at times, but they can hardly be blamed for that. The Russian brass sound is perhaps the only aspect of this ensemble to bear any relation to 19^th century Italian performance conventions. Like Verdi's opera orchestras, the Mariinsky's brass sound is slightly husky and sometimes nasal, but always focussed and with an appealing vocal quality.

Of the four soloists, soprano Victoria Yastrebova gave the most impressive performance. She's a rising star of the Mariinsky company, and it is easy to imagine her as Tatiana say, or Violeta. Like everybody else on the stage tonight, she has projection and vocal support that most Western singers can only dream of. But there is also nuance and elegance to her sound, and a sense of intimate human scale that most of her colleagues lack.

Mezzo Olga Borodina is the biggest name among these soloists. The bottom end of her register is particularly impressive, especially for a mezzo, but on the whole her performance lacked subtly, and was rarely easy on the ear. Tenor Sergey Semishkur and bass Ildar Abdrazkov were similarly powerful but unnuanced. Abdrazkov is one of those Russian basses who always sounds like he is singing an octave lower than he actually is. He had a few problems keeping the pitch though, and like his mezzo and tenor colleagues, resorted to foghorn mode a little too often for my liking.

One other grumble about the singing - I don't think I heard a single word the whole evening. In fact, for the first few minutes I wondered if they were singing in Russian. Yastrebova's first entry put me right. Her diction wasn't great either, but it was a considerable improvement on that of her colleagues.

As he might with his London orchestra, Gergiev gave an energetic and driven reading of the score. He's always on the lookout for the next opportunity for dramatic impact, and often seems impatient in the intervening lyrical passages. That said, he is always a practical musician. Verdi writes for a cathedral acoustic, and what the Barbican offers is about as far from that as you can imagine. So, when Verdi leaves long silences after fortissimos for the reverberation to die away, Gergiev doesn't dwell on them, and by getting on with the following passage he considerably improves the coherency of the result.

It is always clear who is boss. Gergiev lines the soloists up in front of him and makes sure they do exactly as he indicates, only rarely and reluctantly giving them brief moments of interpretive freedom.

For the most part, the ensemble lacked clarity, but it was difficult to tell why. Presumably the players are used to more reverberant acoustics, which might bring out the middle of the orchestra better and particularly the woodwind. But Gergiev has spent enough of his career in this hall to know its foibles. There were one or two moments of illumination though, and these were wonderful. The fugue in the Sanctus really worked, with both singers and instrumentalist giving tight, clipped phrases and weaving in and out of each other with impressive skill. And the last few movements were redeemed by the greater focus on soprano Victoria Yastrebova. Her whispered/sung passages sounded a little forced, but otherwise her singing at the end here was great. And some of the quiet choral writing in the last ten minutes or so allowed the choir to move into Orthodox chant mode. Again, not quite the right style for the piece, but wonderful to hear nonetheless.

For all the impressive musical skills that the Mariinsky brought with them to this evening's event, the overridding impression was of a messy clash of styles. We certainly learned more about opera in Russia from this conflict than we did about liturgical music in Italy. But hearing this music performed in such a different way helps to resist complacency about the uniformity of orchestral playing in the UK. I wonder what Russian audiences make of British orchestras when they visit? Nothing unprintable I hope.