THE TIMES 20 April 1991

CONCERT LS/ Rozhdestvensky

Painful though it is to admit it, one advantage gained from the reduction of the London Sinfonietta's season is, that when it does play, the event invariably has the air of being something special. This concert survived the axe presumably' because it was part of the South Bank's "Russian Spring" Festival; how heartening it was to see a large audience so hungrily consume three Soviet pieces, and patiently give ear even to Boris Tishchenko's Symphony No 3 of 1966. This last work, scored for a mixed group of 16 musicians and lasting a full SO minutes, is a curiosity. The music of its first movement, "Meditation", ranges from taut lyricism through passages of neo-classical dryness to high, dissonant drama.' That first movement worked well, but the quasi medieval and immensely repetitive last movement, "Postscriptum", tested patience too much, though it was played under Gennadi Rozhdestvensky's firm and clear direction with exquisite poise.

The three newer pieces were far shorter; Among them was Dmitri Smirnov's Jacob's Ladder, also for 16 players, the first work to be commissioned by the Michael Vyner Trust. Inspired by William Blake's drawing of the Biblical story, this beautifully crafted piece is sectional, with contrasted instrumental groupings marking the boundaries. It is also refined, revealing sensitivity for instrumental characteristics and a predilection for lyrical phrases. The ending, when the first violin emerges from a lovely texture of celesta, vibraphone, bells and the higher stringed instruments, is a moment of transcendent magic. It also exemplifies the economy of Smirnov's writing; not a note was inessential.

Neither was there anything extraneous in Elena Firsova's fine and fluent Chamber Concerto No4 (1987); for which Michael Thompson was the eloquent horn soloist. And, despite its dense' textures, everything mattered also in Alfred Schnittke's Concerto for Four Hands and Chamber Orchestra, fronted by the strong-fingered Viktoria Postnikova and Irina Schnittke

Stephen Pettitt