Dvorák’s New World

Please note today’s matinee concert is going ahead.

Was there ever a more evocative, nostalgic work than the New World Symphony? Right from the opening bars it is clear that the composer’s thoughts were more of his beloved Bohemia than of the exciting city of New York in which he found himself. Rachmaninov also had his moments of homesickness after he moved to the USA, but the bubbly brilliance of his ever-popular Paganini Rhapsody makes it one of his most extrovert works.
Sometimes musicians simply choose to ignore their surroundings: Prokofiev’s equally brilliant first symphony was composed, amazingly, against the stormy background of the Russian Revolution!