St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Orchestra’s latest tour stopped in Montreal on Friday, thrashed the hall romantically and left with Napoleonic humility in a din of applause. It was not a contemporary concert, but what would you expect from the flagship of Russia’s neo-imperialist arts arsenal, whose commander has had the job for 25 years? Gergiev was booed in New York for his silence on gay rights, but these talented reactionaries dispatched an all-Rachmaninov program in grandly old-fashioned style,
and pianist Denis Matsuev channeled golden age virtuosity.