17 Feb
19:00
19:00
Shostakovich and Britten
Philharmonia Orchestra
Royal Festival Hall
BRIDGE Suite, The Sea
SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Concerto No. 2
BRITTEN Spring Symphony, Op. 44
An early start tonight for a generous programme that brings together three composers who powerfully influenced one another. Britten, whose centenary we are celebrating this year, was a composer prodigy so gifted that he
began lessons with Frank Bridge at the tender age of 14. His Spring Symphony is an early masterpiece, a setting of fourteen poems evoking the progress of winter to spring and the onset of summer. Later in life Britten fell under the spell of Gustav Mahler, as did his near contemporary and close friend, Dmitry
Shostakovich. All cares are banished, however, in tonight's concert, especially in Shostakovich's exuberant Second Piano Concerto, in which the humble five-finger exercise meets Rachmaninov
head-on.