National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham, 04 November, 2023.

4****: William Ruff.

Saturday’s visit of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine to Nottingham was about far more than music, of course. The fact that the musicians had reached the UK safely was itself a triumph: a long journey by road to Poland from where they flew here. Even before the orchestra started their programme there was high emotion: loud, sustained applause as they walked onto the stage; the waving of yellow-and-blue flags and a choir singing the Ukrainian National Anthem.

They played pieces which suited the mood. First came Boris Lyatoshynsky’s Grazhyna, a piece depicting the heroic exploits of a 15th century female warrior who led her army into battle disguised as her husband. After a rather gloomy opening (with some lovely cor anglais playing evoking the heroine herself) the central section describes battlefield violence with an epic sweep and lots of loud, heavy brass and stirring rhythms punched out by the drums. It ends quietly and hopefully, despite Grazhyna’s death. The music may not be very subtle, but the NSOU, under their conductor Volodymyr Sirenko, played with vivid colour and plenty of feeling, the spirit of fighting against the odds clearly being close to their hearts.

Then came possibly the most extraordinary performances of Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto I have ever heard. Pianist Antonii Baryshevskyi is every inch the brooding, Byronic artist. And he gave a brooding, Byronic performance of Beethoven: exploiting the piano’s poetic and lyrical possibilities. As was common in concertos of this period, the composer left it up to the performer to improvise the cadenzas in the first and last movements. Normally pianists choose something in keeping with early 19th century style. Not Baryshevskyi, however. His were very much 21st century cadenzas: dissonant, anguished, tortured. Injecting them into Beethoven was a risk and the audience was clearly divided between those who saw them as a brilliant musical statement about art in a time of war and those for whom serenity had been so disturbingly shattered. Whatever one’s opinion, no one’s going to forget this performance in a hurry.

After the interval came Finnish composer Sibelius’s 1st Symphony, a piece written at a time when Russia was tightening its stranglehold on Finland and seen as a symbol of struggle against an oppressor. You can see why it made its way into the Ukrainians’ tour. There was much colourful, characterful playing throughout their performance. Although it was red-blooded, even visceral, it made Sibelius sound more epic than subtle and it would have been good to have greater attention to detail, such as a more nuanced approach to dynamics than seemed possible in all the epic sweep and soaring emotion of Volodymyr Sirenko’s interpretation. There was, however, much fine playing from the all sections of the orchestra, including the principal clarinet who has such a spot-lit role at the start of the symphony.

Two encores followed the rapturous applause, cheering and standing ovations. As I say, this concert was about far more than music.

National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine

Volodymyr Sirenko, conductor

Antonii Baryshevskyi, piano