JTI Friday Series

Berlioz Overture, Le Corsaire
Rachmaninoff Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
Elgar Symphony No. 2

Vasily Petrenko conductor
Kirill Gerstein piano

Twenty-two years before Rachmaninoff created the rapturous and devious dance for piano and orchestra that is the Paganini Rhapsody, Edward Elgar wrote a symphony that was intended to represent ‘high and pure joy’. The Second Symphony certainly appeared high-spirited, bubbling over with energy and expression. But it was far more emotionally complicated than Elgar had suggested – as much a battleground for conflicting feelings and instincts as the great Romantic scores of central Europe, enshrined in instrumental opulence the likes of which England had never heard before.

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Hear it first!
Select a link below to listen to selected movements from this concert (Flash Player opens in a new window).

Berlioz: Overture, Le Corsaire
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini - Introduction: Allegro vivace
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini - Theme: L'istesso tempo
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini - Variation 21: Un poco piu vivo
Elgar: Symphony No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 63 - I. Allegro vivace e nobilmente
Elgar: Symphony No. 2 in E flat major, Op. 63 - II. Larghetto

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