Tchaikovsky’s Little Russian

After Hamlet in November, Andris Nelsons offers us another of Tchaikovsky’s responses to Shakespeare, a passionate fantasy overture based on the kind of story of doomed love to which the composer was naturally drawn. But Tchaikovsky is not always doom and gloom, and his Second Symphony uses folk music to create a tuneful work of great charm. Britten, a more openly gay composer than Tchaikovsky, nevertheless suffered his own share of inner torment – but in his Serenade we hear his acutely sympathetic response to great English poems from across the ages.

6.15pm Pre-concert talk – The Little Russian
Roderic Dunnett of The Independent gives a user’s guide to Tchaikovsky’s Second Symphony

£9.50, £13.50, £17.50, £21.50, £24, £28, £32

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