This concert is part of the following series:
Autumn-Winter 2008/09
Click here to book online on the Southbank Centre website, or telephone the box office on 0871 6632515.
Rachmaninov’s great Second Symphony was composed a full 12 years after the spectacular failure of his First, which had plunged him into a profound and long-lasting depression. He pronounced himself very unhappy with the first draft of the score, and it went through months of revision before he conducted its triumphant première in 1908. Today it remains one of the most popular symphonies in the orchestral repertoire, loved particularly for the intensely romantic slow movement at its heart – a quality that it shares with Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto, although Shostakovich’s romance is, on this occasion, more mournful and elegiac than that of Rachmaninov.
Read Tugan Sokhiev's biography.
Read Nikolai Demidenko's biography.
Tickets: £45 £38 £29 £23 £18 £14 £11 £8
RECOMMENDED RECORDINGS
Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio espagnol
Berlin Philhamonic/Lorin Maazel
(with Ravel and Stravinsky)
DG 449 769-2
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Neeme Järvi
(Rimsky-Korsakov collection including the three symphonies)
DG 459 512-2
Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2
Dmitri Shostakovich/Orchestre l’ORTF/Andre Cluytens
(with Piano Concerto No. 1 and solo piano music, all played by the composer)
EMI 5 62646 2
Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic
(with Piano Concerto No. 1; André Previn & Cello Concerto No. 1; Yo-Yo Ma)
Sony SMK 89752
Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2
Russian National Orchestra/Mikhail Pletnev
DG 439 888-2
Philharmonia Orchestra/Mariss Jansons
Chandos CHAN 8520
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Järvi
Telarc CD-80670
Prokofiev Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3
Nikolai Demidenko/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Alexander Lazarev
Hyperion CDA66858
Scriabin Piano Concerto; Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1
Nikolai Demidenko/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Alexander Lazarev
Helios CDH55304 (Hyperion)
Weber Piano Concertos Nos.1 & 2; Konzertstück
Nikolai Demidenko/Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Sir Charles Mackerras
Hyperion CDA66729
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4; Mussorgsky orch. Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse/Tughan Sokhiev
Naïve V5068
Click here to book online on the Southbank Centre website, or telephone the box office on 0871 6632515.
Rachmaninov’s great Second Symphony was composed a full 12 years after the spectacular failure of his First, which had plunged him into a profound and long-lasting depression. He pronounced himself very unhappy with the first draft of the score, and it went through months of revision before he conducted its triumphant première in 1908. Today it remains one of the most popular symphonies in the orchestral repertoire, loved particularly for the intensely romantic slow movement at its heart – a quality that it shares with Shostakovich’s Second Piano Concerto, although Shostakovich’s romance is, on this occasion, more mournful and elegiac than that of Rachmaninov.
Read Tugan Sokhiev's biography.
Read Nikolai Demidenko's biography.
Tickets: £45 £38 £29 £23 £18 £14 £11 £8
RECOMMENDED RECORDINGS
Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio espagnol
Berlin Philhamonic/Lorin Maazel
(with Ravel and Stravinsky)
DG 449 769-2
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra/Neeme Järvi
(Rimsky-Korsakov collection including the three symphonies)
DG 459 512-2
Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2
Dmitri Shostakovich/Orchestre l’ORTF/Andre Cluytens
(with Piano Concerto No. 1 and solo piano music, all played by the composer)
EMI 5 62646 2
Leonard Bernstein/New York Philharmonic
(with Piano Concerto No. 1; André Previn & Cello Concerto No. 1; Yo-Yo Ma)
Sony SMK 89752
Rachmaninov Symphony No. 2
Russian National Orchestra/Mikhail Pletnev
DG 439 888-2
Philharmonia Orchestra/Mariss Jansons
Chandos CHAN 8520
Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/Paavo Järvi
Telarc CD-80670
Prokofiev Piano Concertos Nos. 2 & 3
Nikolai Demidenko/London Philharmonic Orchestra/Alexander Lazarev
Hyperion CDA66858
Scriabin Piano Concerto; Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1
Nikolai Demidenko/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Alexander Lazarev
Helios CDH55304 (Hyperion)
Weber Piano Concertos Nos.1 & 2; Konzertstück
Nikolai Demidenko/Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Sir Charles Mackerras
Hyperion CDA66729
Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4; Mussorgsky orch. Ravel Pictures at an Exhibition
Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse/Tughan Sokhiev
Naïve V5068
