London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski, Igor Levit

Programme to include:

Karol Szymanowski: Concert Overture, Op.12
Alexander Scriabin: Piano Concerto in F sharp minor
Interval
Sergey Rachmaninoff: Symphony No.1

The Orchestra performs sublime music by Rachmaninoff and his contemporary Scriabin.

A crowd of self-serving music critics queued up to dismiss Rachmaninoff's First Symphony in 1897. But among them there was one opposing voice. Nikolay Findeisen wrote of the Symphony's 'beauty, novelty and inspiration', recognising its huge emotional range and the highly alluring way in which Rachmaninoff captures a sense of impending tragedy right from the first page (perhaps his own desperate love for a married woman).

It's easy to see the influence Rachmaninoff had on his younger classmate at the Moscow Conservatory, Alexander Scriabin. When he wrote his Piano Concerto in 1896, Scriabin was deeply in love, too, and it shows in the music's fluent elegance and supreme delicacy.

Royal Festival Hall at 6:15pm - Free pre-concert event. Professor Stephen Downes, a specialist in 20th century repertoire, looks at the often overlooked influence of Scriabin. Free.