St. Petersburg / Moscow

St. Petersburg

Smolensk Cemetery / Lomonosov Palace / The Hermitage

St. Persburg

River Neva

St. Petersburg

Summer Gardens

Moscow

Donskoy Monastery / Arbat / Stalin Building s / Tchaikovsky Concert Hall / Bolshoy Theatre / Hotel Metropole / Lomonosov Terrace / Red Square / Kremlin

Ukraine (Homage to Pushkin)

The Crimea / Odessa / Art Museum Russia

Date of Production: 2015-04-16

Playing Time: 00:56:58

Catalogue Number: 2.110290

UPC: 747313529056

The Places

Our visit starts in St. Petersburg, with its palaces and gardens and strange white nights by the River Neva. It continues with scenes of life in Moscow, Red Square, the Kremlin, monasteries and the
Bolshoy Theatre. There is a final homage to the poet Pushkin, with portraits and memorabilia from Ukraine and from Russia.

The Music

Tchaikovsky completed his Fifth Symphony in 1888, and regarded it with his usual critical diffidence. "Having played my symphony twice in St. Petersburg and once in Prague, I have decided it is a failure. There is something repellent in it, some over-exaggerated colour, some insincerity of invention, which the public instinctively recognises", he wrote, in a letter to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck. It nevertheless achieved considerable success, eventually winning Tchaikovsky's own approval, and has remained a popular element in Russian symphonic repertoire ever since. His Marche Slave of 1876 reflects patriotic Russian feelings at a time of Balkan conflict with Turkey.