German violinist Julia Fischer joins the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra for its second concert, as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s much-loved Violin Concerto – a work in which concert-hall sophistication balances rustic folk-simplicity, overflowing with tunes and climaxing in a dazzling rondo finale.

Big tunes – or, at least, one big tune – also dominate Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ Variations, his affectionate musical portrait of friends and acquaintances.

The concert opens with one of Rimsky-Korsakov’s finest scores, the ‘three symphonic pictures’ adapted from his 1907 opera The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh – a work sometimes nicknamed ‘the Russian Parsifal’.

Rimsky-Korsakov
The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh – symphonic pictures 13’

Tchaikovsky
Violin Concerto 33’

interval

Elgar
‘Enigma’ Variations 29’

Julia Fischer violin

St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra
Yuri Temirkanov conductor