“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, sayeth the Lord”. And taking his cue from those thunderous words, the young Rachmaninov hurled himself into a First Symphony on a formidable scale. Dark, turbulent and burning with unrequited ion, this is music as gothic melodrama – lost (but later recovered) when its composer fled the Russian Revolution for a life of exile.
It’s a gripping climax to this concert from guest conductor Chloé Van Soeterstède: an afternoon that begins in the dream-world of Debussy’s mythical Faun, and ends at the gates of the inferno. But there’s time to sing, and to dance too - and when you hear BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artist Hana Chang play Prokofiev’s zingy Second Violin Concerto, you’ll believe that a violin can do both.
