Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra plays Rachmaninov

Aziz Shokhakimov  Conductor 

Maria Ioudenitch  Violin 

Saint-Saëns  Danse macabre 

Prokofiev  Violin Concerto No 1 

Rachmaninov  Symphony No 2 

A love letter in sound.

Saint-Saëns’s Danse macabre creates a strikingly demonic image of skeletons rising from their graves at Halloween, bones rattling as they dance for Death. And there’s devilish difficulty in Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, completed in 1917 against the backdrop of the Russian Revolution, especially in the breathless central scherzo, swirling with technical challenges. With an affinity to Prokofiev, multi award-winning violinist Maria Ioudenitch prepares to bewitch in a work whose gentler sections include an opening melody penned amid a love affair. 

Glorious melodies follow one after the other throughout the whole of Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony. It was a critical and personal triumph for the composer who had suffered a long creative drought after the wounding criticism of his First Symphony and it remains one of today’s most beloved orchestral works. 

Indulging in the romance is the superlative Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra. Conducted with infectious energy by Musical and Artistic Director Aziz Shokhakimov, the 170-year old orchestra retains its distinctive dual French-Germanic traditions and, today, is one of the most important ensembles in France and Europe. 

Muxton 12.15pm, Newport 12.45pm and Cosford 1.05pm