Pictures at an Exhibition

Programme

GRAMMY® Award-winning American violinist Gil Shaham joins the Philharmonia in a programme full of vivid orchestral colour.

The American violinist returns to Leicester for the first time in 12 years with one of the most popular concertos in the repertoire. Lyrical, long-breathed melodies, perfectly suited to Shaham’s warm tone, fill the first two movements of Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. But the violin’s singing lines are tinged with darkness, and give way to a tumultuous, stumbling dance in the finale.

Framing the concerto are two works filled to the brim with instantly recognisable tunes, used across the world in everything from adverts to film soundtracks. Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances form the stunning finale to Act 2 of his unfinished opera Prince Igor, bringing to life a roaring celebration of the villainous Khan Konchak. Equally vivid, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition imagines the listener stepping into the worlds of a series of paintings in a gallery. Led by the stately ‘Promenade’ theme as we wander past the canvases, each movement evokes a new tableau, from grand castles to adorable baby chicks dancing inside their eggs.

Unfortunately, Stanislav Kochanovsky is unable to travel to the UK for the concert, owing to delays with visa processing. We are very grateful to Eivind Gullberg Jensen for stepping in at short notice.