Rachmaninov’s First

‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, sayeth the Lord’. And taking his cue from those thunderous words, the young Rachmaninoff hurled himself into the mother of all First Symphonies. Dark, turbulent and burning with unrequited passion, it’s a real gothic melodrama – lost (but later recovered) when its composer fled the Russian Revolution for a life of exile. It’s a gripping climax to a concert that begins with Brett Dean’s musical re-imagination of an ancient culture, and features the UK premiere of Kinan Azmeh’s jazz-inspired Clarinet Concerto – music infused with the sounds of his native Syria, and performed tonight by the composer himself.