Paavo Järvi conducts an all-Russian programme including Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. It seems there was no escaping the censorious spotlight of Stalin’s cultural watchdogs. Shostakovich had effectively been backed into a corner when he produced his all-conquering Fifth Symphony as an ‘artist’s response to just criticism’. Even Rachmaninov, then living in America, wasn’t spared when in the 1930s he was declared ‘an enemy of Russia’ and his music outlawed.
Tickets for this concert go on sale September 2013
Forthcoming concerts at Royal Festival Hall:
Sir Andrew Davis conducts in London
May 22 2013, 19:30 - Royal Festival Hall
Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of Wagner's birth, Sir Andrew Davis conducts excerpts from Wagner's Tannhäuser and Die Walküre
Salonen conducts in London
May 30 2013, 19:30 - Royal Festival Hall
Esa-Pekka conducts The Rite of Spring in its centenary performance alongside Debussy's Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune and Varèse's Amériques









