My Homeland

Má Vlast translates as ‘My Homeland’, but when Bedřich Smetana wrote his symphonic tribute to Czech history and culture, he didn’t only create a hymn to a great nation: he stretched the very limits of what orchestral music could express. Our guest conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider understands that: he’s a master at drawing grand emotions and rich colours from a full orchestra. So he’s the ideal partner for a pianist as masterly as Kirill Gerstein, in Rachmaninov’s passionate (and hugely popular) Second Piano Concerto – and just the man to put a rocket under Glinka’s little firecracker of an overture.