Middlesbrough Town Hall

GLINKA’S lively and succinct Overture to his opera Russlan and Ludmilla was a rousing reminder to the not-quite-full Middlesbrough Town Hall audience that the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and its conductor Vladimir Altschuler had arrived to start the new season of international and Northern Sinfonia orchestral concerts with a bang.

At the heart of the concert was Rachmaninov’s 3rd Piano Concerto in D minor, op. 30 with British pianist Freddy Kempf, whose performance was more physical in nature than I’ve heard from him in solo recitals. Its themes were laid out to magisterial effect and his playing of the first movement’s cadenza projected in full its complexities.

He brought measured melancholy to the slow movement before the release of pressure in the final page’s burst of exhilaration drew the audience to acclaim.

No less a tour de force came from the orchestra and Altschuler in a dynamic account of Tchaikovsky’s 5th Symphony in E minor, its fatalistic theme transmuted most effectively, drawing an ovation requiring two unannounced encores.

Next in this year’s orchestral season is on Wednesday, November 7, when the Prague Symphony Orchestra offers Beethoven’s 4th Concerto, with Smetana, Janacek and Dvorak. Details from middlesboroughtown hallonline.co.uk. Box office 01642-729729.