Page 180 - Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Coverage Book 2023-24

Domingo Hindoyan conducting at the BBC Proms 2023 © BBC/Chris
Christodoulou

Honegger – Rugby
Rachmaninoff – Piano Concerto No.3 in D minor
Gabriela Ortiz – Clara
Bernstein – Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Serge Rachmaninoff and György Ligeti have been the two composers whose

anniversaries have been celebrated at this year’s Proms and most of the
concerts I have reviewed, both here and elsewhere, have been of outstanding
quality. None I was more looking forward to than this one – and it has been the
longest of waits for this penultimate concert of the season. Given by the Royal
Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under their Venezuelan conductor, Domingo
Hindoyan, this was one of the earliest to be sold out – and the queue for returns
on the night was a long one.

The soloist for Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.3 was the Japanese pianist
Nobuyuki Tsujii. Returning after a decade – when he played Rachmaninoff’s
Second Concerto – this visit to London more than made up for a cancellation,
due to Covid, a couple of years ago when he was to have played Tchaikovsky’s
Piano Concerto No.1. Like many Japanese – or South Korean – pianists he has
acquired something of a cult following, both in his own country and overseas.
He sells out concerts because he brings quite an unusual gift to the

performances he gives – interpretations which are entirely focused on the
possibilities of sound and feeling; he almost reinvents the music he is playing.