Sibelius's Violin Concerto | Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Shostakovich and Sibelius, with conductor Tito Muñoz and violinist Francesca Dego.

“I need the sound of the trampling of steel-shod boots”, Shostakovich told the first performers of his Ninth Symphony – but this audacious, irreverent mini-masterpiece certainly wasn’t the victory march that the Soviet authorities were expecting at the end of the Second World War. Great music never plays by the rules, and this is a concert full of wonderful surprises – whether a radiant vision of the Northern sunrise by a neglected Finnish genius, or a joyous glimpse of Grieg and his family celebrating a wedding at home.

The dynamic American conductor Tito Muñoz, joins superstar violinist Francesca Dego (described by Bachtrack as “utterly flawless”) in a song of fire and ice: Sibelius’s windswept, wildly romantic Violin Concerto.