Saturday, April 25, 2026
8:00 PM
In his first appearance with the BSO since 2015, star pianist Evgeny Kissin performs two contrasting concertos: Mozart’s charming and poignant Concerto No. 12, and Scriabin’s rhapsodic Piano Concerto. Andrey Boreyko leads this sparkling, Russian-leaning program, opening with Rimsky-Korsakov’s brilliantly colorful Russian Easter Overture and featuring three atmospheric tone poems by Anatoly Liadov from the early 20th century.
Andrey Boreyko, conductor
Evgeny Kissin, piano
Nikolai RIMSKY-KORSAKOV Russian Easter Festival Overture
W. A. MOZART Piano Concerto No. 12 in A, K.414
Anatoly LIADOV Baba Yaga
LIADOV The Enchanted Lake
LIADOV Kikimora
Alexander SCRIABIN Piano Concerto
Learn more about the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2025-2026 season on their site.
In a conversation with CRB's Brian McCreath, conductor Andrey Boreyko reveals the connections between the arrangement of the musicians of the orchestra and music from the Russian tradition, as well as the unique qualities of Scriabin's Piano Concerto and Evgeny Kissin's interpretation of it. To listen, use the player and read the transcript below.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (lightly edited for clarity):
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Andrey Boreyko, who is here with the Boston Symphony. And Mr. Boreyko, thank you for a little bit of your time today, I appreciate it.
Andrey Boreyko Thank you. Please call me Andrey. I'm happy to be with you and to give you the whole possible information I can.
Brian McCreath Excellent, excellent Andrey. Well, the first thing that I noticed when I just sat in on rehearsal is that you've made the decision to split the violins on either side of the podium, not something we see often here in Boston, but we do from time to time. Is that decision specific to the music on this program or is that always the way that you prefer to have an orchestra arranged around you?
Andrey Boreyko First of all, I'm very thankful for this question, because for me, the layout of the strings is one of the very important parts of my musical conception and sound conception, because I do believe that the seating possibilities of splitting for the first and second violins and changing the position of the double basses, celli, and violas also, sometimes plays a critical role. It's incredibly important that in my opinion sometimes you're even not allowed to play in a different way.
I'll give you one example. Russian orchestras, especially at the time of the Romantic period - which is maybe most known and most popular in all the world around Tchaikovsky and Borodin and Rachmaninoff and Rimsky-Korsakov - at this time we didn't have in Russia many great orchestras. It was just the beginning of this culture of the symphony orchestras. And the best one and actually one of the few at the end of the 19th century was in St. Petersburg. And this orchestra, all the composers, most of the composers, who got the possibility that their music will be performed in concert, they knew that it will be this orchestra. And this orchestra was sitting from the very beginning with the split of first and second violins because it has been created upon the German tradition. And it was a little bit copying German tradition at the first few years of the existence. And then this tradition until now exists in the orchestra of Mravinsky and now with the orchestra of another conductor/music director. But Mravinsky spent there many years, and Leningrad Philharmonic is known especially because of his name, yeah? So Mravinsky was always asking to sit this way, and actually now in Russia there is only one more orchestra which is sitting with split violins but it's my opinion that you shouldn't play all the time in the same seating option. You should analyze the music and find the best solution for the audience, for you, for the orchestra to play, to perform this music according to the expectation of the composer.
We don't have a score now, but I can a little bit explain for you, and I hope there are some people listening to us who know this music very well. Tchaikovsky Pathétique, Symphony No. 6, last movement. Everybody knows the tune which is [sings]. Everybody knows and they can whistle this tune and sing this tune. But not everybody knows how it looks like on the first page of the score, in the beginning of this last movement of the Tchaikovsky Pathétique. And if you see the score, it's difficult to describe, but I will try. The first violins are playing music like, [sings]. And second, [sings]. None of this tune sounds like this famous known main theme of the Finale. But, when, later on, Tchaikovsky used this theme in its original form, everybody's playing, [sings], but at the beginning, split violins, presenting this birth of this theme. The theme is not yet there. If you are in a hall, you hear part of the scene from left side and part of this scene from the right side. It's coming together a little bit, but it's still not so obvious, like later in the climax. So, its idea, which is absolutely not possible if you put all the violins together on the same side, they will be sounding together like, [sings].
Second reason, Russian orchestral tradition was based on the Russian Orthodox Church choir tradition. In the Russian church, instruments are not allowed, organ even not allowed. Music of the Russian Orthodox Church is based on the voice, on the choir singing. And if you know, if you don't, I tell you, that in the Russian Orthodox Church, usually there are two choirs, one on the left side and another one on the right side. And they are singing very often one after another. And in a certain moment, in important moments, they're singing together. So, knowing also that all the Russian composers were, most of them, they were religious, maybe all of them. All this big Borodin and Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov and Cui and Liadov and everybody. They went to the church every week. For them, it was normal that the sound comes from one side, then from other side, and then sometimes comes from the two choir together. So, composing the instrumental music, predictable or not predictable, or let's say under conscious or unconsciously, they were using this possibility to put the melodies in two different groups of the first violins and use it sometimes for the dialog, antiphonal dialog. First violins suggest, second respond. And it comes to this kind of strong dialog. But dialog when each part has a possibility to say something and to be audible in what it's saying. And imagine that all are sitting together again. It's everything in one pot. And there is no possibility to create this dialog.
When I know for sure that the composers we are writing, thinking about the orchestra with split violins, I'm asking the orchestra to play with a split violins. And this is for me important, especially by Tchaikovsky, by early Scriabin, by Rimsky-Korsakov, by Borodin, if we are speaking about Russian music, because I'm doing the same with Brahms and Beethoven, but everybody knows that the German tradition is supposed to be like this. I appreciate very much if the orchestras are ready to sit in the order I'm suggesting. And I'm very, very happy that the Boston Symphony has agreed to do it. But I know that in some orchestras, it's just not possible at all. I've had a few responses that our orchestra is sitting only in this way, because our music director is asking us to sit this way, not to change every week. I respect such policy, but I'm always trying. For me, it means a lot. In the German tradition, cellos and basses usually are sitting on the left side, next to the first violins. But I'm 100% sure that second violins need some support when they're on my right side, especially light stand. And they don't have bass, they don't have a tune, they don't have a harmony, they are very, very poor and unhappy. But if, like this time, if we ask the cellos to be next to them and bassists, they're likely a bit covered with a basement, with a harmony, with the tunes, everything. They feel themselves part of the show. And the violas on the left side, located better to project the sound of violas as a whole. That's my ideal, actually, from the left to the right. First violins, violas, cellos, behind the cellos, basses, and on the right side second violins.
Brian McCreath This is so fascinating, I could talk to you about this all afternoon, because this is amazing, the way that you've thought this through and the way it relates especially to the Orthodox tradition. I didn't know about the dual choirs that is typical in Russian Orthodox. I certainly knew that there were no instruments going on. But let's talk though, because you mentioned early Scriabin, this Scriabin that we're hearing in this concerto, which is a piece only done twice previously by the Boston Symphony. When we think of Scriabin, we think of Poem of Ecstasy and Prometheus. Just a couple of years ago, the BSO performed Prometheus. And these are wild pieces.
Andrey Boreyko With the lights?
Brian McCreath With lights, yes. There was a light device that was there to accompany it, a "light organ" they called it.
Andrey Boreyko A keyboard. "Luce."
Brian McCreath And so, yet this concerto is so different. Tell me about the Scriabin we're hearing in this particular concerto from an earlier time.
Andrey Boreyko Well, Scriabin presents the Moscow School. He grew up in Moscow, and he spent in Moscow a lot of time. And the Moscow School, let's say, is pretty different as the St. Petersburg School. St. Petersburg School was based more on the folk tunes from Glinka, beginning from Glinka, and then Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, Balakirev. They were trying to create symphonic repertoire based mostly on the Russian traditional music. It's St. Petersburg School. Moscow School, which is presented, let's say, more by Tchaikovsky, by Rachmaninov, by Taneyev, by Scriabin, was also split into two parts. One part was looking towards the Germany, like Tchaikovsky. He was definitely looking for his inspiration in Schumann's music, for example, in Bach and Mozart. And another branch of this tree, if you say, the smallest one and less known one, was related and connected with such name like Alexander Scriabin, who was trying to find a reliable mixture between French musical culture and the Russian. Being Russian, he couldn't be French.
But you should know that most of the people in beginning of the 20th century, noble people, they were speaking French like a first language. Russian was sometimes even not so good. And the kids were speaking with the parents only French. They were speaking Russian only with the nannies, which nannies were there coming from the villages, and they were simple people, the nannies is didn't speak any French. But with mama and papa, small babies were speaking French mostly. So French was French culture, French music, French language, French food. So Scriabin was deeply influenced by Chopin.
And of course, Chopin is a Polish composer. But we shouldn't forget that the French people, for example, if you ask in France about who is Frederic Chopin, "it's our composer." It's a French composer, of course. Of course, he spent a lot of time in France, and his biography is that he left Poland in a very tragic situation, but he spent the rest of his life out of Poland, and he died out of Poland. And he was actually together with some other composers who were at this time working and living in Paris, a very French-influenced composer.
By the way, for you and for your listeners, there is a beautiful new movie which has been produced last year, 2025, a common French and Polish production, it's called "Chopin Chopin," with an absolutely fantastic actor who is playing the main role. And I would heartily recommend to you or to everybody who likes the music of Chopin just to watch this movie. It's not the typical biopic. It's a quite tragic movie.
So, Scriabin being a pianist, fantastic pianist himself, and being very, very much influential through the music of Chopin, he was trying as a young man. That was his ground. It was his soil. It was a source of his inspiration, this kind of music. That's why this concerto, some people are saying that it's not Scriabin. It's not true. It's Scriabin, but it's different Scriabin. We know the Scriabin, late Scriabin, already a little bit insane, thinking about the universe, music for universe and other worlds, and all the story with his island in India. He was about to buy an island in India, on a lake in India, to build a huge concert hall for a hundred thousand people, without a roof, to play their mystery and to communicate with space and with another world. But this is a young man who is just at the beginning of his career. He doesn't know very well the orchestra, so as he was orchestrating this music, he needed help because at this time he wasn't so perfectly prepared like later on by Poème de l'extase or Symphony No. 3 or Symphony No 2 also. But without this Scriabin, we wouldn't ever get the late Scriabin. In this music, we can already see that the seed, the promising seed, something which will grow later on to the Prometheus or to the Poème de l'extase. You can tell me, well, it sounds a little bit like Rachmaninoff. Oh, it's sounds a bit like Chopin. But it's not Rachmaninoff, and it's not Chopin. It is Scriabin. But it is young Scriabin who was still looking for his own path. For the future of Russian music, he was trying to find his own path. And because he died so early and so stupidly, and you know, he died because of the blood poisoning, because he got a cold at the funeral of Sergey Taneyev, another composer. He went to the funeral, he got a cold, and he had a kind of carbuncle on his nose, and then it was a blood poisoning. And he died, because of this small stuff on his nose. It's stupid, the man who was thinking about space and other dimensions, and he died like this. But there were almost no other composers who chose to go his own way. He was so unique, maybe except of Nikolai Obukhov. Nikolai Obukhov, O-B-U-K-H-U-V. He was a composer who died in France, in Paris. The same kind of mysterious creature. Very interesting composer. I just heartily recommend to you to read about Nikolai Obukhov. The only one composer who was very close for me to Scriabin's ideas and went farther than Scriabin was Karol Szymanowski. He's a Polish composer, who also grew up in very strong connections with Russian musicians. And I think that Szymanowski is the only composer who is like kind of an extension of this line. But this is unfortunately, for Russian music, this is a dead end. So, with the death of Scriabin, I can't give you many examples of really talented music written in this way.
Brian McCreath That is amazing. What amazing stories. And I actually did not know that's how Scriabin died. That is very tragic. That's terrible.
Andrey Boreyko Not just tragic, it's sarcastic, it is absurd, because the man who was about to change the world died from such a thing.
Brian McCreath Well, so tell me, with all that as background, tell me about working with Evgeny Kissin on this concerto, a concerto that most of us will not have heard before. So, what is it that Evgeny Kissin brings to the concerto that maybe goes beyond or is unique from what other pianists might do with it?
Andrey Boreyko It's a big pleasure to work with Evgeny Kissin, especially I'm happy to perform with him the Scriabin concerto, because in a good sense of this word, he is merciless to the conductor and to the musicians of the orchestra, but in the best possible sense of the word. He is absolutely free in his time. There are only a few measures in the whole concerto which don't have rubato. And this concerto is, in every measure, almost every measure the tempo is floating, breathing, changing. And he's doing it absolutely logically for him and without trying to help us, to adjust something to us. He's just free. That makes my goal and the orchestra musicians' goal not easy, it's really difficult. And especially because this concerto is not very often performed. So, you just told me that the famous Boston Symphony played it only twice. I know that Chicago Symphony played it also only twice, and both times in the last millennium.
I was music director at the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, and I did two Chopin competition finals, the last competition and the previous one. And this orchestra can play Chopin's concertos without music and without conductor, not without pianist [laughs]. But they so many times play this music that they know every note and they are ready to react immediately to every single change of the finalist. There are 12 finalists, for example, and there are 12 interpretations. And you have only one rehearsal. But it's exceptional because, if you take the same piano concertos of Chopin to the orchestra which is playing these concertos once in 10 years, the orchestra musicians will feel themselves not very comfortable. Nothing to play, but a lot to react. And this is not just a lot to react, but it's there's something to play, too. It's not so simple, like an orchestra of Chopin. So, for the orchestra musicians, this concerto has two levels of difficulties. One is just to learn all the notes. It's no problem for the Boston Symphony. And second, at the same time, be so flexible - like in Chopin concerto, the Warsaw Philharmonic - to be able to predict - to predict - what the soloist will be doing the next moment. That's already the mathematics of the highest level, to predict what will be done in a few seconds. So, Evgeny, from one side, he's playing very free, from the other side he is a great, great, great partner. I did it maybe one, two, three, this is fifth or sixth time. Not many pianists do have it in their repertoire. Not many conductors like to conduct it having only one rehearsal or maximum two. And not many orchestras like also to feel themselves a little bit not enough rehearsed at the concert, so that's why this concerto has not always had a good history.
Brian McCreath Andrey Boreyko, I seriously could just talk to you all day. This is so fun, this is great. Thank you so much.
Andrey Boreyko Thank you.