Review: Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No.1 at Philharmonic Hall ****1/2

They may come from two different ‘Dream’ teams.

But it seems the partnership between Domingo Hindoyan and pianist Simon Trpčeski is no ‘cut and shut’ affair, certainly if this early December concert in a festive-looking Philharmonic Hall is anything to go by.

Trpčeski has practically bookended his 2024 in Hope Street, playing Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the other half of his own Dream Team, Vasily Petrenko, in February and returning here – in great form - for Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No 1 with Hindoyan as a pre-Christmas treat.

And in fact, the programme had evidently been designed with Christmas cheer in mind.

Tchaikovsky first rolled out his Piano Concerto No 1 to an audience (albeit an audience of one, his boss Nikolai Rubinstein) on Christmas Eve 150 years ago. Christmas Eve in the Gregorian calendar that is – the Russian Orthodox Christmas is celebrated in early January.

Here it was paired with yet more festive Tchaikovsky in the form of orchestral excerpts from his beloved Christmas Eve-set ballet The Nutcracker.

But first, Tchaikovsky and Trpčeski, 10 years after he recorded it with the RLPO.

That was probably less frenetic than the week behind the scenes here for the genial Macedonian who spent it – in his words – ‘ping ponging’ backwards and forwards relentlessly between rehearsals in Liverpool and Zagreb for performances of the concerto on two consecutive days.

Here in Hope Street, Grieg in February, Tchaikovsky in December, divided by nine months but together surely two of the most dramatic openings in the piano repertoire.

Heralded by the Phil’s horn section, the latter set off in sturdy, muscular fashion into the sweeping open melody on piano, as romantic as anything Rachmaninov might have later devised.

It did feel however as though the forces of pianist and orchestra took a short time to fully coalesce.

When they did, it was a pleasure to simply sit back and let the lovely melodies unfold, to watch an animated, ever entertaining Trpčeski paint colourful musical pictures with the orchestra and to revel in the expansive dexterity and expressive tone showcased in the opening movement’s two cadenzas.

Above and top: Christmas has come early to the Philharmonic Hall.

There was a lovely rapport with the winds in the andantino second movement, and plenty of ‘vivo’ in a joyful, cavorting finale.

Warm and sustained applause for this Hope Street favourite was rewarded with a Croatian Christmas song (I wonder if Zagreb will get a British carol tonight?) delivered with his best wishes and a “hope that we live in a much (more) peaceful world”. It was enchanting stuff that really needed the lights dimming, and glasses of good cheer glinting in the light from candles set out on small cabaret tables.

There was more enchantment from Tchaikovsky, if not Trpčeski, after the interval in a series of glistening, light-on-their-toes musical scenes from The Nutcracker which shared out the compositional selection box of choice moments between sections – a luscious, extravagant swirl of harps here, the rat-tat-tat of castanets there, and bright flute trills over plucked strings elsewhere.

Woodwind brought playfulness to the Dance of the Reed Flutes (if you can’t picture it, just think “everyone’s a fruit and nut case”) and a patient Ian Buckle stepped up in the final minutes on musical box celeste, well-paced, alongside Ausias Garrigos Morant on E flat clarinet.

Hindoyan swept it to a swinging, swaying, picturesque, pirouetting conclusion (the music, not the conductor) to send the audience out into the windy night with a residual warm glow.