The Hallé with Karl-Heinz Steffens and Yulianna Avdeeva (piano)

This concert begins with a gallop, which marks the homecoming of the shaman hero of Finland’s epic poem, Lemminkäinen, whose excitement Sibelius captures in music of unstoppable momentum. Its powerful sense of anticipation is matched by the famous opening of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, which heralds a titanic face-off between soloist and orchestra. Taking up the challenge is Yulianna Avdeeva, winner of the prestigious Chopin Piano Competition in 2010 and an artist whose energy and elegance has won her acclaim from Berlin to Tokyo. Dvorák’s reputation was riding high in 1884, so much so that the Royal Philharmonic Society commissioned him that year to write his Seventh Symphony. Inspired by the example of Brahms’s Third Symphony but also showing the strains of the death of Dvorák’s mother and the demise of his composer friend, Bedrich Smetana, the Seventh is his darkest yet most compelling symphony. Beginning with smouldering intensity, it shows Dvorák’s Slavic lyricism at its very best, dramatic and poignant by turns.

Free pre-concert talk, 6.30pm in the auditorium: Jonathan James on Dvorák’s Seventh Symphony.

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