SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF THE MUSSORGSKY CONSERVATORY URAL

7 pm: Pre-concert Lecture with Anne Kussmaul in the Werner-Otto-Saal
Free for ticket holders (admission at 6:45 pm)

PROGRAMME

A hit, a masterwork, a rarity and a novelty: this promising mixture awaits the audience at the concert by the Symphony Orchestra of the Mussorgsky Conservatory Ural, which travels to Berlin from Yekaterinburg in Central Russia. Unsurprisingly, all the works are by Russian composers. The evening opens with Mussorgsky’s dark, even satanic orchestral piece A Night on Bald Mountain, and then veers towards the religious in Yuri Abdokov’s world premiere. The new work with the title Chorale Postlude is dedicated to the memory of the great Russian violist Rudolf Barshai. And Rimsky-Korsakov was inspired by melodies of the Russian-Orthodox Easter liturgy to write his stirring overture Russian Easter Festival. All that is missing is the hit after the interval: Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, the “Pathétique” – a rousing, soulful portrait that could hardly be more Russian!