Proms 2026 Rachmaninov’s ‘Paganini’ Variations

Once described as ‘a film score without a film’, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 is subtitled ‘The Year 1905’. The work’s four movements pay vivid homage to the First Russian Revolution, plunging listeners into the violence of its Bloody Sunday massacre and the grief and anger that followed. Kirill Gerstein is the soloist in Rachmaninov’s glittering Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini – a set of virtuoso variations on a devilish theme, while Oliver Knussen pays tribute to Stravinsky in his gilded fanfare Flourish with Fireworks.

Thomas Søndergård © Andy Buchanan