Rachmaninov’s ‘Paganini’ Variations

Live at the BBC Proms: the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and conductor Thomas Søndergård are joined by pianist Kirill Gerstein in Rachmaninov's 'Paganini' Variations.

Presented by Tom Service, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Oliver Knussen: Flourish with Fireworks
Sergey Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini

c.7.30pm
Interval: Tom Service talks to musicologist Daniel Elphick about Shostakovich and his epic 11th Symphony. Depicting the unfolding 1905 Russian Revolution, the symphony’s ambiguity has fascinated music historians for its dual critique of historical Tsarist oppression and contemporary Soviet tyranny.

c.7.50pm
Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 in G minor, ‘The Year 1905’

Kirill Gerstein (piano)
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
Thomas Søndergård (conductor)

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.