The Hallé Orchestra, Alexander Gavrylyuk

Sir Mark and the Hallé open the Thursday series with Stravinsky’s runaway success written for Diaghilev's second season of 'Ballets Russes' in Paris. A beguiling and exotic telling of a Russian fairy tale, The Firebird takes us on a magical journey from an enchanted forest through dreams, dances and games, from darkness and death to light and rebirth.

The brilliant and thought-provoking Alexander Gavrylyuk is soloist in Rachmaninov’s great Paganini Rhapsody, arguably that composer’s defining work for piano and orchestra. "This one's for my agent" Rachmaninov said of the work's ravishing eighteenth variation.

The concert begins with Debussy's ground-breaking orchestral prelude, based on a poem by Mallarme in which a faun (represented by a solo flute) sees two beautiful nymphs and, drifting in and out of sleep, savours the exquisite memory.