January 28, 2025 | Tchaikovsky Concert Hall
Soloist – Denis Matsuev, piano
Conductor – Vladimir Spivakov
Rachmaninoff. Concerto No. 3 for piano and orchestra in D minor, Op. 30
Rachmaninoff. «Symphonic Dances», Op. 45

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On January 28, Vladimir Spivakov will perform with the NPR and his old friend and regular partner Denis Matsuev in the Tchaikovsky Hall. The musicians' collaboration has been going on for over two decades: the maestro has persistently invited to his festivals and concerts the charismatic soloist whom he holds in esteem for 'his phenomenal virtuosity, sparkling temperament, broadness and power of his human and musical nature'. Denis is very appreciative in his response: 'Spivakov is a master of accompaniment: in the music score, he finds genuinely unique moments, which the soloist can catch not with every conductor. And this costs a lot!'

The program of the coming concert includes only works by the great Russian classic Sergei Rachmaninoff. There will be played his Third Piano Concerto and Symphonic Dances. 'Rachmaninoff is a giant, – says Vladimir Spivakov. – He is one of the most loved composers in the world, and to me personally he is a lodestar. One can always find in his music something you have not heard and seen before, something unfathomable. Each return to his music is a feast for my soul.'

For Denis Matsuev, Rachmaninoff is also a specific author whose works are an indelible part of his repertoire. 'You can polish Rachmaninoff to perfection all your life. I am constantly doing it: for instance, having played Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto over 300 times I always study it as a new work,' – confesses the musician.

It was Denis Matsuev who was given the possibility to record some recently discovered works by Rachmaninoff and become the first performer of Concerto No.5 (Alexander Varenberg's edition of the Second Symphony), to play Rachmaninoff's piano in Russia and be a privileged partner of the S.V/Rachmaninoff Foundation and its founder Alexander Rachmaninoff, and now also its art-director. In 2022, he headed the S.V. Rachmaninoff International Competition for pianists, composers and conductors. In 2021, he became the first Russian performer to win the ICMA Best Videorecording nomination for a Rachmaninoff program with the Lucerne Orchestra under the baton of Riccardo Chailly.

'Sergei Rachmaninoff is an icon not only for me but also for audiences and musicians all over the world, – says Denis Matsuev. – He is an absolute colossus and man who personified Russia. When you are flying in a plane over our vastness, you understand: this is Rachmaninoff, this is Russia. The boundless spaces are his waves, surprising culminations, endless phrases...

Until today, nobody has neared his singing on the piano, his genial renditions of his own music and of other composers. None of musicians has ever kept his level: to write such music, play it on the piano and orchestrate it. All three embodiments of Rachmaninoff were immense.”