Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony

Live at the BBC Proms: Kahchun Wong conducts the Hallé in music by Ravel & Rachmaninov with pianist Alexandra Dariescu joining them for Nadia Boulanger’s poetic Fantasy for piano.

Presented by Ian Skelly, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Maurice Ravel orch. Colin Matthews: La vallée des cloches
Nadia Boulanger: Fantasy for piano and orchestra

c.6.25pm
Interval: Alexandra Dariescu joins Ian to talk about her Proms Debut, plus Leah Broad talks about Nadia Boulanger and her legacy.

c.6.45pm
Sergey Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 2 in E minor

Alexandra Dariescu, piano
Hallé
Kahchun Wong, conductor

Rachmaninov’s hard-won Symphony No. 2 – a profoundly personal triumph forged in the failure of his First Symphony over a decade earlier – is the centrepiece of this concert by Manchester’s Hallé orchestra and its Principal Conductor Kahchun Wong. Its expansive, late-Romantic lyricism meets the glowing, pealing soundscape of Ravel’s ‘The Valley of the Bells’ from his Miroirs, orchestrated by Colin Matthews. Pianist Alexandra Dariescu makes her Proms debut in Nadia Boulanger’s boldly poetic 1912 Fantasy for piano and orchestra, with its eclectic nods to Franck, Fauré and Stravinsky.