On Tour in Jiangsu

The Music

Shostakovich’s Symphony No 5 was begun in 1937, a year after Stalin condemned the composer’s opera Lady Macbeth as ‘muddle instead of music’. On the surface, the Fifth falls back into Soviet line with its clear sense of structure and abundance of tunes. But there’s an underlying menace to the opening movement, a brooding darkness to the Largo, while the surging finale is surely nothing short of Shostakovich at his most bitingly ironic.

Bruce Liu brings Prokofiev’s dazzling modernistic and virtuosic Piano Concerto No 3 to life with its tempered moments of incredible, expansive beauty. Anatoly Liadov has become something of footnote in Russian music, yet his sumptuously orchestrated, impressionistic tone poem The Enchanted Lake is one of the defining works of late Romanticism.

The Performers

One of the world’s most versatile pianists, Bruce Liu explores the thrill of Prokofiev before Chief Conductor Sir Antonio Pappano leads the Orchestra into Shostakovich’s electric Fifth Symphony.