Russian Fire at Napier Municipal Theatre

An intoxicating intensity animates Rachmaninov’s Caprice Bohémien. Composed at the beginning of his career, gypsy songs entrance listeners as he pines for the wife of another man. Such passion is met in Schumann’s Piano Concerto. Demanding a diversity of emotional colour, the nuanced virtuosity of Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov will captivate from the opening bars. The entire orchestra is then set alight in Shostakovich’s flamboyant Symphony No. 15. In his last symphony, we see sparks of youthful exuberance transform into a quiet yearning, and then flicker back to an exploration of the orchestra’s vast timbres. This symphony will come to life in the expert hands of the Russian conductor Alexander Lazarev who treats us with this masterpiece of the Russian repertoire.