Rachmaninoff & Stravinsky – Cheerful and Effervescent

Adam Hickox has once again picked a soloist from the top shelf and introduces the young Marie Ange Nguci to the audience in Trøndelag in a concert that holds a Russian repertoire both exciting and wide-ranging. Rachmaninoff's sparkling Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is a bravura work for piano and orchestra. Here he shapes and stretches the theme through all kinds of musical styles and variations. The rising star, Marie Ange Nguci, has led critics to describe her interpretation as remarkable and with a finesse that takes us seamlessly from variation to variation while she fine-tunes the character of each variation quite unperturbed. Stravinsky's Petrushka is the love-triangle drama between the three marionette puppets Petrushka, the Ballerina and the Moor, masterfully spun forth in a whirlwind of Russian folk tunes, popular melodies and effervescent musical depictions of teeming street life in the marketplace of a spring-time St. Petersburg. We open the concert with Gubaidulina's whimsical Fairytale Poem, about a piece of chalk that gets to draw grand castles, beautiful gardens and a sunset over the sea. Programme: Sofia Gubaidulina / Fairytale Poem Sergei Rachmaninov / Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, op. 43 Igor Stravinskij / Petrushka (1947 version)

• Adam Hickox
• Marie Ange Nguci

RECORDINGS OF THE WORKS

Igor Stravinskij: Petrusjka

Open on YouTube (2018)More recordings on Kulturbase

Sergej Rakhmaninov: Rhapsodi over tema av Paganini, op. 43

Watch in the DR archive (2010)More recordings on Kulturbase

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