Age of anxiety

William Walton was the original angry young composer. So forget everything you thought you knew about British music: Walton’s First Symphony is a cry of rage from an age of anxiety, a controlled explosion of anger, ardour and shattering power. There’s no possible way to follow it, so guest conductor Vasily Petrenko looks back to his childhood in the USSR, and starts the concert with the no-holds-barred romance of Khachaturian’s famous Adagio. And pianist George Li was a medallist in the 2015 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow – so who better to join the musical battle-royale of Tchaikovsky’s hugely popular First Piano Concerto?