Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra: Glinka, Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky

Glinka

Ruslan and Lyudmila Overture

Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No. 3

Tchaikovsky

Symphony No. 6, Pathétique

Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra

Benjamin Zander, conductor

 Alexander Korsantia, Piano

There will be no pre-concert Guide to the music with Benjamin Zander before the concert.

When a recording from a previous BPYO tour of the overture to Ruslan and

Lyudmila was posted on YouTube, it was rejected on copyright grounds, because

it was identified as a performance by the Leningrad Philharmonic, under

Russia’s most famous conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky. This was presumably because

the BPYO performance was the only one to match Mravinsky’s break-neck tempo! This

overture by Glinka often called the father of Russian Music, is one of several Russian

works we are preparing for our June tour to Russia. It was the recent performance of

the Prokofiev 3rd piano concerto with the BPO by the great Georgian pianist Alexander

Korsantia that inspired me to invite him to play with the BPYO, thereby giving the

players a direct connection with the Russian soul before we leave.

Critics everywhere have commented on Korsantia’s perfect technique and

extraordinarily burnished tone. But perhaps what is most remarkable about him is the

uniquely personal vision of everything he plays. There is never a note without a deeper

intent behind it. Prokofiev’s headlong Third Piano Concerto, one of the hardest and

most exhilarating pieces in the repertory, will, for many, be their introduction to this

major musician whom we are fortunate to have as a resident of Boston.

And to end the season is Tchaikovsky’s final composition. The Pathétique is one of

the greatest tragic utterances in the whole history of music. One is apt to encounter it

often in the course of a concert-going lifetime, but no degree of familiarity ever lessens its power to touch places in your heart that are reached almost uniquely by this composition.

–Benjamin Zander, conductor