Pictures at an Exhibition

Alain Altinoglu conducts a programme of late-Romantic Hungarian and Russian music, rich in melody and full of storytelling.

As a soldier regales his tales of adventure and heroism in the suite from Kodály’s opera Háry János, the composer creates a dream-world, full of dramatic characters, folk touches and colourful stories. Simon Trpčeski joins the Orchestra as the soloist for Rachmaninov’s stormy, passionate Piano Concerto No 2, a dialogue between piano and orchestra written as the composer was emerging from a period of depression.

Closing the concert, Pictures at an Exhibition follows a visitor – Mussorgsky – walking through an art gallery. The strident melodies, irregular rhythms and Ravel’s orchestration underline the mood of each painting he observes, from the woodwind chirpy chicks through to the reverberant brass in the catacombs, the percussive terror of the witch and the blazing brass and pealing carillons of the finale.