The renowned London Symphony Orchestra performed at Warsaw Philharmonic Hall on 16th February. The performance ended in a standing ovation. The Londoners performed Béla Bartók’s Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka, and the Piano concerto in F minor, Op. 21 by Fryderyk Chopin. The soloist in the last piece was Emanuel Ax, an American pianist of Polish origin born in Lviv.

This is how Jacek Hawryluk of Gazeta Wyborcza national daily (18th February 2010) described the orchestra’s performance:
“The interpretation of Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka, a choreographic burlesque in four images, in the version from 1947, provided the climax of the night. One had to wait for this piece to hear the famous sound of the London Symphony Orchestra, which we know from the recordings. Finally, this powerful machine sparked after the languid Chopin: it sparkled with sound, radiated with a palette of colours, and sparkled with the sophisticated solos of the winds (flutes, bassoons, the “jangling” trumpet) that LSO is famous for. It was a truly “theatrical” narration: voluminous, multicoloured, multilevel. This is how the best orchestras play, which we had an opportunity to learn for ourselves listening to the Berliner Philharmoniker in the same hall in September.”