St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra

St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra

Usher Hall, Edinburgh

Michael Tumelty

LADIES and gentlemen, hats off. I have never heard anything like this. And I suspect that the large crowd which flocked to the Usher Hall on Sunday to hear the fabled St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly the Leningrad Phil) with its legendary conductor, Yuri Temirkanov, haven't either.

Over the decades we have heard many performances of Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony. All the biggies in Scotland - Jarvi, Lazarev and Runnicles - have done it. It never wears out and never becomes overworked.

It's not just one of the composer's greatest symphonies, it's one of the great symphonies of all time. It plumbs every depth. It pulverises. It beguiles. It overwhelms. It pounds home its political points with visceral ferocity, right through to the final bar.

Nobody on God's Earth does it like Temirkanov. He's getting on a bit now, but he's lost nothing. I have no idea what he does. Much of the time he stands stock still. A sweep of the left arm marshals his forces. A nod triggers action. A shrug might change tempo. He's a magician.

The playing is always astonishing, always from the bottom up. The bass section is from Wonderland - same numbers, different world. Why can't our orchestral basses reach these depths?

Suddenly, on Sunday, life was better, more illuminated, not just by this shattering Shostakovich, but by Nikolai Lugansky's devastating performance of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto.

As he always does, Scotland's most-loved Russian pianist swept aside technical impossibilities in a thoroughly musical and unpretentious display of his genius. Lugansky is one of the most intelligent pianists of the era.

What a night.