Once again the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra’s principal cellist Arkady Orlovsky stepped onto the Circle podium, this time to launch his 16th Russian Festival concert, with the Tchaikovsky Festival Orchestra, his usual pickup group comprised of ISO, ICO and other players. This time he give us an all Tchaikovsky program. After opening with Tchaikovsky’s brief, boisterous “Dance of the Buffoons,” Orlovsky’s wife, pianist Tamara Orlovsky, returned, as she does for each festival, for a performance of the composer’s universally loved Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, Op. 23. She was dressed in a brilliantly flashing, silver sequined jacket and shiny silver colored slacks, commanding at least as much visual attention as her playing does in the aural realm. She poured brilliance, exquisite expressiveness and sloppiness in somewhat equal measure into her playing. With her fingers flying, one is always conscious of notes—more notes than one hears from almost anyone else, it seems. In addition, Tamara and the orchestra failed to land at the same place on a few occasions. In recent Russian festivals, Tamara has done better than this one, making the Tchaikovsky First a disappointment.

Arkady ended the program with an “unauthorized” version of the Manfred Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s richest scored and longest four-movement work. Though better conducted than the concerto, Arkady took the opening of the fourth movement — the bacchanal section — way too fast, it becoming almost runaway. This contrasts with the two middle movements, which proved mostly effective. What made Arkady’s reading unauthorized is that instead of ending the symphony softly, hauntingly symbolizing Manfred’s death as the score indicates, he repeated the loud first movement ending. This was possible because the codas of both movements start identically, with a full-blown statement of the Manfred theme. He rationalized the change by pointing out that the  “correct” ending calls for an organ, and there was none. If Arkady had simply waited till next year to play Manfred, he would have had a theater organ, which is being installed in the hall even as we speak. More news on the Circle’s new organ acquisition will be forthcoming.