NDR Radio Philharmonie Hanover
Cadogan Hall
Conductor: Stanislav Kochanovsky
Piano: Nikolai Lugansky
Zurich International Orchestra Series 2026/7
It’s quite a change to see an orchestra so formal. Every male, including conductor and soloist, wore tails with the women in concert black. And they made a unified entrance at the start by filing onto the stage rather than arriving piecemeal and warming up at random as UK orchestras usually do. They clearly do things differently in Germany and it’s rather refreshing. NDR Radio Philharmonie also seems to have recruited large numbers of young female players and that’s commendable too.
Configuring the orchestra with second violins to the right of the conductor with cellos next to first violins made for balance and plenty of audible detail in Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony. Stanislav Kochanovsky conducted it with understated elegance which brought out tuneful precision. The staccato bassoon work was a particular delight as was the finale which came with lots of molto vivace and felt very playful. Kochanovsky is very good indeed at dramatic dynamics.
Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 1 (1891) is a youthful work dating from the composer’s student days. He revised it in 1917. It’s less familiar than his three later concertos, or his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini but the hallmarks are all there: the mood changes, drama and lyricism. And in Nikolai Lugansky’s hands it came to life pleasingly in this concert. He gave us spectacular playing, for example in the first movement cadenza and the resolution of the melody in the allegro vivace was played with warmth and unshowy competence. It was an interestingly coherent performance given that, with the orchestra in this formation and the piano in position on Cadogan Hall’s smallish stage, the leader of the orchestra and the leader of the second violins can’t see each other.
And so after two resounding Russian works to a rich and glorious. “home grown” German one after the interval. The opening of Brahms’s Symphony No 2 was exceptionally arresting with close attention to detail which brought our passages that often go unnoticed such as the lovely first movement flute work. Other highlights of a memorable performance included the gentle joy stressed in the adagio and splendid pizzicato across all strings in the last movement. The explosive fortissimo moments were startlingly effective and Kochanovsky delivered the expansive passages with as much Brahmsian panache as you could wish for – and some fine tuba playing.
Inevitably this enjoyable concert ended with a Brahms Hungarian dance as an encore – thrown cheerfully at the audience with bravura and smiles. By then musical hair had been let down and it felt much less formal.
