The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's season opens radiantly with Berlioz's Roman Carnival Overture, a work brimming with bustling carnival scenes. Dvorák's powerful Cello Concerto is one of a series of remarkable works either sketched or completed during his visits to America between 1892 and 1895. This lyrical concerto is infused with a touch of melancholy, brought about by the illness and sudden death of his wife's sister (with whom had had once been in love), his passion finding radiant expression in the concerto's moving coda. Petrushka, Stravinsky's second ballet for Diaghilev, scored an enormous success at its first performance in 1911. This puppet love-story, as powerful as any human love-tragedy, drew from the 29-year-old Stravinsky an electrifying, supremely confident score. Heard frequently as a much abbreviated concert suite, the full score of the ballet is performed here as the composer originally conceived it. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra website.| 17 Jan 11 | Southbank Centre West End, Greater London Performance Details => Venue archive |
