Santtu conducts Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade

This afternoon’s programme gives every member of the orchestra a well-deserved moment in the spotlight.

A quiet but inexorable snare drum rhythm opens Ravel’s Boléro. It ushers in a haunting melody that’s passed around the orchestra, slowly building to a roof-raising climax.

Alexandre Kantorow triumphed in the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2019, and Gramophone described him as ‘the real deal, a fire-breathing virtuoso.’ Saint-Saëns’s dazzling Piano Concerto No 2 demands every ounce of virtuosity he can muster, but there’s poetry too in the opening movement, and a carefree playfulness in the central Scherzo.

In Scheherazade, Rimsky-Korsakov said he wanted to evoke the ‘fairytale wonders’ of The 1001 Nights. A tender, graceful solo violin melody represents Scheherazade herself, and Rimsky-Korsakov deploys all the colours of the orchestra as she tells her bewitching tales of princes and princesses, sailors and storms.