Petrov is President of the St Petersburg Composers' Organisation and has an impressive oeuvre in many genres including symphonic works, ballets and an opera, but is especially known for his film scores. His Memoria for violin and chamber orchestra abounds in evocative gestures that celebrate the lyrical and dance like qualities of the violin. There is a strongly Russian accent to the pivotal semitone motif, in 'scotch-snap' rhythm, that the soloist introduces and which is taken up in dialogue with the horns and woodwind.Together with a contrasting rising arpeggio idea, these motifs are developed over slow, low sustained strings at the outset, dwelling on the acerbic interval of a ninth in a mood of reflective elegy.

Underpinning the movement is a gradual arc of intensity, with a gradual build towards an exciting climax, at which the music springs vividly into dance-like exuberance, Yuri Zhislin's brightly projected double-stopped energy supported effervescently by the whole orchestra. Then, tension subsides with eerie swoops emanating from inner voices, fading into silence.

The sheer expressive punch of a Russian music, epitomised by the biting dissonances and rhapsodic outpourings of a Gubaidulina or Denisov or the poly-stylistic nostalgia of Schnittke is a unique and memorable experience. Yet the context within which these major composers emerged from is sometimes overlooked and unfamiliar, and it was therefore a special and, in the event, a moving treat to hear UK premières of music by less well known contemporary Russian composers, in their presence, at the recent 'St Petersburg's Revelations' Festival.

This three-day festival of lectures and concerts, held in London on 13-15 December 2001 was presented by Musica Nova Productions, under the direction of the singer and pianist Evgenia Jakubowski, who studied in St Petersburg with Vladimir Uspensky, a former pupil of Shostakovich, whose works were strongly featured.

The Artistic Director was the young British conductor Alexander Walker, who, as principal guest conductor of the Voronezh State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, is also an expert in the performance of Russian music.

A more abstract, even experimental eclecticism coloured the Music for String Quartet and percussion by Vladimir Uspensky, a five-movement work that, according to the composer (in interview) marked a decisive turning point in his development. It epitomised a trend towards a balance of formalist leanings and neo classical allusion to Russian tradition, symbolised by the use of fugue, or symmetry, and contrast, of ironic waltz, improvisation and finally, Russian church music.

The work was much admired by Dmitry Shostakovich, with whom Uspensky studied in the early 60s, and following its première in 1968 by the Leningrad SO String Quartet he arranged it for string orchestra.

The 'Prelude' features a confrontation between brittle rhythmic gestures in timpani and side drum, and icy, alternating string chords, the dialogue impregnated by silence, and, towards its end, interrupted by the metallic glissando of the inside of a piano, here played by the composer. The rhythmic ideas coalesce into short motivic fragments in the ensuing 'Fughetta', in which the xylophone doubles the terse subject within the string polyphony. Yet the fugue functions semiotically as an allusion to the past, cast aside by the piano's resonant clash, which then introduces the Intermezzo.

This is a wistful waltz, its airy textures balanced between innocent charm and irony, that gives way to a central impassioned outpouring that almost reaches, but pulls back from its mood of profound yearning, still in search of an 'authentic' idiom. The bristling 'Toccata' that follows combines xylophone with strings in a colourful sequence that explodes, as in a motorway pile-up, in an improvisatory cataclysm, a highpoint of anxious, brutal passion. Here one sensed a move from detachment to engagement, and the allusion to Russian church music in the smooth and sweet string harmonies of the final 'Postlude' gained an expressive conviction reminiscent of Schnittke's polystylism.

The 'Postlude' also seemed the expressive climax, in the arresting 'cadenza' for piano -- high and low extremes, note and chords, resonantly dissonant, which set off the strings' allusion to Russian church music (Uspensky has composed much Liturgical Music, having been a chorister in his early childhood) all the more. The work concludes, palindromically, with the initial drum, strings dichotomy of the very opening.

The Russian Chamber Orchestra of London's vibrant sonority was displayed to great effect again in the third UK première, that of the Fanfare and Requiem by Yuri Falik, a composer with a distinctive, often ravishing approach to new tonality. Particularly fascinating was the way in which hints of biting dissonance inflected the long breathed lyricism so reminiscent of Barber and Copland, with a Russian sense of nostalgia, one that well conveyed the intense emotion suggested by the title.

Especially effective was the idiomatic use of the medium, for instance the rhetorical power of allowing simple ostinato figures to continue beyond the stretches of melody they accompany, a device Tchaikowsky also uses eloquently in his Serenade, that concluded the programme. In this popular masterpiece the Russian Chamber Orchestra of London came fully into their own, with Alexander Walker welding the ensemble with tremendous energy and immediacy.

A former student of Ilya Musin in St Petersburg, Walker's has a strong affinity for the Russian style, which came across in the intensity and warmth of this fully engaging performance. The orchestra responded with rich sonorities, especially Tchaikovsky's many chordal themes, and after the balance of sumptuous melodic writing and delicacy in the Waltz, the touching Elegie was imbued with just the right amount of nostalgia, the finale bristling with zest. It formed a stirring conclusion to this rewarding and enlightening programme, an initiative for which much credit is due to the St Petersburg Revelations festival organisers. It whetted the appetite for more exposure to Russian music and performances by the promising RCO.