Star rating: ****
Lev Atlas was right. The music his fellow violinist Oleg Ponomarev composes with guitarist Nigel Clark for their trio, Koshka, does lend itself to expansion. What's more, Koshka can take on an extra 37 members and still retain the trio's essential fire and personality.
It was this second point that brought real satisfaction to this celebration of the Russian gypsy tradition. Atlas, Ponomarev and Clark are frighteningly virtuosic but there's huge passion, warmth and humour in what they do, too. And all of those boxes were ticked.
The orchestra at times enhanced the trio, at times simply sat and admired them, aped their mischievous pizzicato notes on a grand scale or, as on the marvellously named Miserable Hora, matched both their melancholy and their sheer speed for a bracing ending to the first half.
Lialia Shishkova's authentic gipsy troupe's arrival added spine-chilling folk balladry and more operatic-styled singing as well as traditional dancing charm - although, without wishing to belittle their contribution, the essential Koshka-with-orchestra project sounds as if it has the legs to go on from here to the wider stage.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article