Leningrad. 1964. Darkness. A young boy waits with bated breath. Bit by bit, he’s enveloped in a swelling cocoon of D major. His hiding place is a secret, located behind the stage at Capella Hall, an 18th-century auditorium with excellent acoustics. The lad – he’s 12 – is bunking class. His name is Semyon Mayevich Bychkov, and by rights he should be next door at the Glinka Choir School. It’s not the first time he’s snuck off to hear the Leningrad Philharmonic rehearse, but this time he couldn’t have torn himself away if he’d wanted to. He’s hopelessly smitten.
Walking the city a few hours later, the youngster sees a poster for a performance of Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony to be given that night. What he has just heard was the work’s finale, the movement the composer called ‘What Love Tells Me’. The man and his music will become a constant for Bychkov over the next 58 years, culminating in his first recorded cycle of the nine symphonies for Pentatone (beginning with No.
