‘Belgian National Orchestra & Slobodeniouk’

A few years after the incredible success of his First Piano Concerto, Tchaikovsky composed a second. Tchaikovsky wrote this whirling, highly romantic concerto out of 'inner necessity' rather than on commission, but it is seldom heard in our concert halls. This concert is therefore a rare opportunity, and as a bonus, the soloist is none other than Alexandre Kantorow. In 2019, he became the very first French winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.  After initial success, Prokofiev's Sixth Symphony was banned by the Soviet regime for being too philosophical and insufficiently positive. The modernism of Tatar-Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina was also frowned on in the Soviet Union. She was only allowed to compose music for documentaries, animation films, and radio programmes. Her composition Fairy-Tale Poem began life as background music to a radio broadcast of a Czech fairy-tale.