Out into the fog this evening for a trip to hear the Stockport Symphony Orchestra in a Russian programme of Rimski-Korsakov, Rachmaninov and Balakirev. Started with R-K's Easter Festival Overture - definitely the wrong liturgical season but great fun and then Vanessa Latarche was the soloist in the Rachmaninov Concerto No 1 - played with gusto but the work didn't convince, there were points - particularly when the orchestra came in after the cadenza when I felt that the piano and orchestra had two different scores. Probably wasn't helped by the piano being rather more prominent than the orchestra. The soloist bravely played in a dress with straps - the hall was very cold.
After the interval came the Balakirev Symphony No 1 - a work I didn't know and until half way through I thought that the R-K was going to be the highlight of the evening but then came a lovely slow movement and and energetic finale. The slow movement appeared to have cribbing from Scheherezade though I see that wikipedia has the symphony well before (1866) the R-K work though the programme note claimed that the symphony had a much longer gestation than that, so it looks as if it was Rimski doing the pinching! There were also bits which B or R-K had nicked from each other in the finale as well as echoes of Prince Igor - I suppose 19th C Russia was a bit isolated and that group of composers were pretty close!
Then it was out into the Russian (sorry Cheshire) winter and home!
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