Ulster Orchestra/Dmitri Sitkovetsky

Egmont Overture - Beethoven

Symphony No 3 - Karayev

Symphony No 1 in C minor - Brahms

The Azerbaijani composer Kara Karayev (1918-1982) was a pupil of Shostakovich, but his Third Symphony, which was premiered by Rudolf Barshai and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in 1965, shows few obvious signs of the influence of either his teacher or of the ethnic musical traditions of his homeland. Instead he contrives to treat the 12-tone technique in a more or less tonal fashion, and the prevailing temper is neo-classical. It is clear from the start that a very independent musical thinker is at work. The rhythms are light and varied, and there are some fascinating sonorities. The work falls into the traditional four movements, and it is the slow movement, placed third, which shows the most obvious depths of feeling. How many other fascinating byways of the Soviet period lie waiting to be discovered?

The symphony was played by the Ulster Orchestra under Sitkovetsky with the same care and discernment lavished on the Brahms First Symphony, where the sympathetic treatment of detail made up for the lack of visceral excitement also evident in the Beethoven. An increasing number of conductors nowadays divide the violins right and left, as was usual in Brahms's time, but the arrangement of the basses in a row behind the cellos is, I think, new for the Ulster Hall, and it certainly made a difference. From where I was sitting every bass pizzicato counted, and the gain in warmth and depth of sound was remarkable.