Tchaikovsky’s celebrated Fantasy Overture superbly captures the passion and pathos of Shakespeare’s play, and when it first appeared in 1869 firmly established the composer’s gift for tragic lyricism. A brooding melancholy courses through Rachmaninov’s music, whose formidably demanding Third Piano Concerto has
been recorded to great acclaim by Russian virtuoso Nicolai Lugansky. Sibelius was a virtuoso orchestrator and the mysterious beauty of his Fifth Symphony arises from the composer’s novel use of orchestral colour.