Vasily Petrenko and the award-winning Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra present a program of Russian orchestral classics. Ravel's brilliant orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Khachaturian's sumptuously romantic suite from his ballet Spartacus keep company with Kabalevsky's fizzing overture to his opera Colas Breugnon, Schehedrin's 'Naughty Limericks' and a beautiful orchestral arrangement of Rachmaninov's wistful Zdes' Khorosho.
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REVIEW:
Vasily Petrenko has been among the most musically reliable of the wave of Russian performers who settled in Britain following the fall of the Soviet Union. He grasps that the Ravel version of Pictures is, first of all, an orchestral showpiece, and there's something very satisfying about hearing the Liverpudlians nail their parts one by one. Everything falls into place in the pieces by Kabalevsky, Khachaturian, and Rachmaninov. The same is true of the engineering, as the Onyx team knows the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall well. The result is a fine recording that shows there's life in the old warhorses yet.
