The lure of the East runs through this Prom given by Maxim Emelyanychev and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. French pianist and star of the Paris 2024 Olympics opening ceremony, Alexandre Kantorow is the soloist in Saint-Saëns’s ‘Egyptian’ Piano Concerto – a vivid musical travelogue, lively with chirping crickets and croaking frogs – while a selection from Rameau’s ballet Les Indes galantes offers sonic snapshots from Peru, Turkey, Persia and America. Fate knocks loudly at the door in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, answered with defiant musical optimism, but it’s Death who gets the final word in Jay Capperauld’s Bruckner’s Skull.
Broadcast on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer this season
Alexandre Kantorow © Sasha Gusov