Dresden Philharmonic, Symphony Hall, Birmingham, Tuesday 16 April 2024.

4✩✩✩✩ Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.

“Lush Russian romanticism contrasted with Mid-20th Century Russian angst.”

Modest Mussorgsky – Khovanshchina, Prelude ‘Dawn on the Moscow River’

Dmitri Shostakovich – Violin Concerto No 1 in A minor

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Symphony No 6 ‘Pathetique’

In a traditionally programmed, overture-concerto-symphony concert, the ‘Dresden Philharmonic’ delivered lushly textured pieces by two romantic stalwarts, and an altogether more spikey and emotionally uncompromising mid-20th Century offering.

Violinist, Maria Ioudenitch, was a singularly impressive soloist in Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1. Written at a time when the composer was out of favour with Stalin, the work seems to alternate between brooding anger, sardonic anger and just plain anger.

The opening movement is characterised by long and constantly self-perpetuating, organic melodic lines which are so typical of this composer. Ioudenitch managed these with a steely determination and intelligence, bringing a huge range of colour to bare, while never losing emotional momentum or an unwavering sense of line.

After a fiery, and hugely technically demanding scherzo - delivered with admirable precision and flare - Ioudenitch brought a more tender and telling lyricism to the poignant Passacaglia, playing with a well-grounded tone and exquisite phrasing. Her cadenza explored a wide emotional range, and the final Burlesque movement was thrilling.

This is a concerto where the solo violin takes centre stage throughout, with the orchestra providing colouration and acting as a mirror or echo. The Dresden Philharmonic, under the baton of Stanislav Kochanovsky, fulfilled this supportive role with sensitivity. However, some of the textures got a bit blurred in the more frenetic passages.

A similar lack of definition bedevilled the start of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6. This was very much a performance of two halves. The first movement, with that big melody, felt a little underwhelming, and the string tone might have benefited from a bit more body. The second movement felt rather too comfortable and urbane, with not enough made of its unsettling rhythmic ambiguities. Also, some of the woodwind detail didn’t dovetail quite as it should.

Then, at the start of the third movement, it was as through everything suddenly snapped into focus. Energy levels shot up to maximum, the ensemble tightened, and we got the definition and detail that had previously been a little lacking. Kochanovsky shaped this movement beautifully, teasing us with fragments of the march tune that pepper the first section - maintaining a sense of expectation and suspense - so that when it all came together it did so with a joyous feel of catharsis and release.

In the final movement, Kochanovsky gave the big, sweeping melodic lines room to breathe and the strings played with an expansive, rich, full-bodied tone. Balance between all the sections was wonderfully well-measured. The result was compelling, emotionally authentic, and quite heart rending.

Dresden Philharmonic

Stanislav Kochanovsky – Conductor

Maria Ioudenitch - Violin