Mariinsky Orchestra - Valery Gergiev

The Russians are coming to Aix-en-Provence: the Mariinsky orchestra and Valery Gergiev , the “Tsar of Russian music” (according to Bertrand Dermoncourt), are coming to the Grand Théâtre. Gergiev has been Artistic and General Director of the prestigious Saint Petersburg company where he was named conductor in 1978, for over fifteen years. The maestro made what was still called the Kirov the leading Slavic orchestra, negotiating the turbulence of the fall of communism with brio, dedicating himself body and soul to the Russian repertoire and more recently opening up to more contemporary music with regular commissions from today's composers. But the history of the ensemble – and the theatre of the same name – goes much further back: it is two hundred years old, and is inextricably linked to the greatest names in classical music. Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Rachmaninoff, to mention but a few, held the reins at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

At Aix-en-Provence we will be hearing Shostakovich. The conductor and his orchestra will be in familiar territory, having recorded almost all of the composer's symphonies (including the “war symphonies” Nos. 4 to 9, brought out by Philips in 2005 as a 5 CDs box-set, as well as a DVD made by Larry Weinstein). This wealth of recordings, to which they recently added The Nose , based on Gogol, and the two Piano Concertos recorded with Denis Matsuev, has gained critical acclaim over recent years. We will hear the Fifth Symphony , composed during the Stalinist purges, while the composer was being harshly criticised for his opera Lady Macbeth. This work of pain and grief that ends in a grating joy will be followed by Dutilleux's Métaboles , a musical play on metamorphosis.