Vasily Petrenko, Conductor
Boris Giltburg, Piano
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Programme:
Coleridge-Taylor, Overture to The Song of Hiawatha
Beethoven, Piano Concerto No.5, ‘Emperor’
Vaughan Williams, Symphony No.2 (A London Symphony)

Royal Festival Hall Programme Note:
Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Second Symphony was written in the shadow of the impending Great War.

Yet again, music reminds us of the precarious nature of personal freedom, while at the same time inspiring hope for a brighter future.

Elgar described the late-19th-century British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor as ‘far and away the cleverest fellow going amongst younger men.’

The Song of Hiawatha is a trilogy of cantatas based on a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and relating the adventures of the titular indigenous American.

The elegiac and expansive Overture reminds us of the talents of this once lesser-performed composer.

Vasily Petrenko and Boris Giltburg have a celebrated and long-standing artistic partnership spanning decades both on stage and in the studio.

Giltburg joins the orchestra for Beethoven’s fifth and final piano concerto, popularly known as the Emperor – a majestic masterpiece, remaining the composer’s best-known and most frequently performed piano concerto.