Lahti Symphony Orchestra: Swan Lake

KIRILL KARABITS, conductor
ELISABETH BRAUSS, piano
BOGDAN DEKHTIARUK, trumpet

Théodore Akimenko, orch. Kirill Karabits: Ouverture Slave (1932) (world premiere)
Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1
Pyotr Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake Suite

Dmitri Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto is more accurately a showcase for the skills of two soloists. A flurry of unrestrained capriciousness draws you into a maze of strange visions, with a trumpet peeking around the corner, shadowing the piano soloist persistently though by no means unobtrusively. The German pianist Elisabeth Brauß is joined by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra’s own trumpeter Bogdan Dekhtiaruk.

Conductor Kirill Karabits is known as an archaeologist who unearths lost treasures in the musical soil of Eastern Europe. The early Ouverture Slave (1932) by the Ukrainian late-Romantic composer Théodore Akimenko here receives its world premiere performance in Lahti.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was a near-total flop when it was written. It is now the most famous ballet in history, and its melodies are forever etched in the world’s collective memory. Assembled shortly after the composer’s death, the Swan Lake Suite pours out its full beauty for nearly half an hour.