161. Rachmaninoff & Shostakovich with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra

The St. Petersburg Philharmonia is among the oldest philharmonic societies in Europe, founded in 1802. The main performance space for its two orchestras, known as the Bolshoi Zal (Grand Hall), is a spectacular venue in the city center just north of Nevsky Prospekt. It is perhaps the best-known concert hall for orchestral music in Russia. It was originally constructed in 1839 as a political assembly hall; the St. Petersburg Assembly of the Nobility met here. My favorite St. Petersburg architect Carlo Rossi designed the exterior of the building (which I admired throughout the summer) but it has recently been covered in scaffolding and fabric for a renovation project. The hall can fit 1,500 people and has been the main performance space in St. Petersburg since the 1840s.

I've been wanting to attend a concert of Russian music in St. Petersburg and a recent listing on the Philharmonia's Grand Hall schedule caught my eye: a performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.3 and Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No.5 by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra (which was founded in 1882). Click here and here to hear these amazing works - these compositions are some of the best pieces from two of the most notable Russian composers. The featured soloist on the piano for the Rachmaninoff piece was Boris Berezovsky, a Russian virtuoso pianist. The hall was full to capacity and a bunch of spectators were even standing in the balconies behind the stage.

A 1996 film called Shine (that won lead actor Geoffrey Rush an Academy Award) depicts the life story of the Australian pianist David Helfgott. The scene in the movie where Helfgott has a mental breakdown while playing an especially challenging piece on stage features none other than Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.3. I'm not sure where exactly this composition ranks on the scale of difficulty, but Berezovsky did not appear to have any particular challenges playing it.