Sounds of War Storm the UK Charts
Petrenko’s Leningrad tops the UK Specialist Classical Chart for a second week
8.573057
Dmitry SHOSTAKOVICH (1906–1975)
Symphonies, Volume 8
Symphony No. 7 ‘Leningrad’, Op. 60
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
Vasily Petrenko
Three weeks after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Shostakovich volunteered with the Home Guard in Leningrad. As the siege of the city intensified, he worked on his Seventh Symphony, completing three movements before being forced to leave Leningrad and travel east by train. The work was completed in December that year. Initially he gave each movement a programmatic title, but later withdrew them, leaving this epic work as an emblem of heroic defiance in the face of conflict and crisis: ‘I dedicate my Seventh Symphony to our struggle against fascism, to our coming victory over the enemy, to my native city, Leningrad.’
Listen to The pity of war: Vasily Petrenko’s
podcast conversation with Edward Seckerson:
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The Artists
© Ben Wright

Vasily Petrenko

Vasily Petrenko was appointed Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in 2006 and in 2009 became Chief Conductor until 2015. He is also Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Principal Guest Conductor of the Mikhailovsky Theatre of his native St Petersburg, and Principal Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. He was the Classical BRIT Awards Male Artist of the Year 2010 and 2012 and the Classic FM/Gramophone Young Artist of the Year 2007. He is only the second person to have been awarded Honorary Doctorates by both the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Hope University (in 2009), and an Honorary Fellowship of the Liverpool John Moores University (in 2012), awards which recognise the immense impact he has had on the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the city’s cultural scene. He now works regularly with many of the world’s finest orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Russian National, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia, Czech Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Sydney Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, the National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia,and the Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin. His wide operatic repertoire includes Macbeth (Glyndebourne Festival Opera), Parsifal and Tosca (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic), Le Villi, I due Foscari and Boris Godunov (Netherlands Reisopera), Der fliegende Holländer, La Bohème and Carmen (Mikhailovsky Theatre), Pique Dame (Hamburg State Opera) and Eugene Onegin (Opéra de Paris, Bastille). Recordings with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra include Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony (2009 Classic FM/Gramophone Orchestral Recording of the Year), an ongoing Shostakovich cycle, and Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, Second and Third Symphonies and complete Piano Concertos.

© Mark McNulty

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

The award–winning Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is the UK’s oldest continuing professional symphony orchestra, dating from 1840. The dynamic young Russian, Vasily Petrenko was appointed Principal Conductor of the orchestra in September 2006 and in September 2009 became Chief Conductor.