A night of Russian music

[Stuart]

Last night I took my family to a night of Classical music by Russian composers - Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Glinka & Tchaikovsky. It was a stunning night of fantastic music culminating in the 1812 Overture, complete with a few explosions & fireworks that filled the whole place with smoke.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgOGl_OWOqg#normal

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW4C2h3lPac&feature=related#normal

If you've never seen a live orchestra and felt their power, I can't recommend enough that you give something like this a try.

[Nude_not_rude]

  I love orchestral music!

Who was the Orchestra? Tell us more about it please??? :)

[Karla]

The orchestra was the Scottish Concert Orchestra. The conductor was a very jaunty and happy fellow who was certainly enjoying his job that night, especially during the finale of the 1812 where a huge firework would explode when he pointed at it!

At the end of Mussorgsky's Great Gate at Kiev he accidentally let slip his baton and it flew up into the air about twenty feet high and landed within a metre of me in the aisle. I was considering catching it but I thought it best not to in case I missed and it bounced off my hand onto someone else.

They played Rachmaninov's second piano concerto, so I am glad that I had been introducing Stuart to it previously. Stuart's mother found it a little long as she was unfamiliar with the work but Stuart seemed to really enjoy it. The violins and cellos were a little swamped I think because we were sitting in the front row and the orchestra were a little above us but I think it would have been perfect on the upper levels. It's always interesting to hear a different mix of volumes with a live orchestra as you notice lots of different things that you don't necessarily hear on a CD.

Borodin's Polotsvian dances were played and the finale to Glinka's Russian& Ludmilla Overture (I don't actually own any recordings of Glinka but it sounded very familiar). So Glinka and Rimsky Korsakov's Capriccio Espagnole were the only two pieces I wasn't completely familiar with.

The orchestra played very well and with great gusto. We're planning to go back to the Usher Hall in Edinburgh in April for Shostakovitch's 5th symphony.

[Nude_not_rude]

Wow that sounds like a great concert. Thanks Karla!

[Stuart]

Karla forgot to add one detail. In the middle of the piano concerto, one of the violinists got up form his seat and rushed out the side stage door. The muffled sound of wet vomit hitting the floor could be heard seconds later...

[Nude_not_rude]

Karla forgot to add one detail. In the middle of the piano concerto, one of the violinists got up form his seat and rushed out the side stage door. The muffled sound of wet vomit hitting the floor could be heard seconds later...

I bet that wasn't in the score!!! 

[todaresq]

When I saw Russian music... composers did not come to mind... but my collection of Russian pop and techno did...

• Ya tebya nikomu ne otdam
• Kroshka Moya
• Samaya Lyubimaya
• Maki
• Moi Laskovyi I Nejnyi Zver'
• Sashok

No clue what they are saying... but some good tunes. 

For those that like classical... but also dance... you should listen to bond...

http://www.amazon.com/Bond/e/B000APQ67G/

GREAT stuff.