London Philharmonic Orchestra: A Matter of Life and Death

Shostakovich called his Fifth Symphony 'a Soviet artist's creative response to just criticism'. Well that was the official line. Like everything in Stalin's Russia though, the reality was a bit more complicated, and the music is a lot more gripping. Conductor Thomas Søndergard brings all his trademark energy to a symphony that defined the 20th century – music that really is a matter of life and death. It's the ideal companion-piece for the atmospheric Violin Concerto by Andrzej Panufnik, the post-war Polish master who found refuge in the UK, and the rich Nordic colours of Sibelius's rarely-performed evocation of a doomed romance, far away and long ago.

Panufnik's Violin Concerto organised in collaboration with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute as part of the Polska Music programme.