| Andrés Orozco-Estrada | Direction |
| István Várdai | Violoncelle |
| London Philharmonic Choir | |
| Lay Vicars of Westminster Abbey | |
| London Philharmonic Orchestra |
Dispatches from a dark century: Shostakovich’s powerful First Cello Concerto speaks both in whispers and warnings, in a USSR in which Stalin’s death was still all too recent. Rachmaninoff, exiled from Russia, celebrates all the colours of a virtuoso orchestra – but still sounds a note of sadness and loss. The link is faith. The ancient chants that echo through Rachmaninoff’s music form the emotional core of the music of Pēteris Vasks: a priest’s son from Latvia, born under Soviet oppression, whose Dona nobis pacem speaks with a quiet but fierce sincerity. Andrés Orozco-Estrada and soloist István Várdai will bring it all into focus.
*In co-operation with the Serge Rachmaninoff Foundation.
The Lay Vicars of Westminster Abbey appear by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.
