Santtu-Matias Rouvali            conductor
Daniil Trifonov                          piano

Brahms                                       Piano Concerto No. 2
Dvořák                                        Symphony No. 7

This concert doubles up on dream combinations. The Philharmonia’s inspirational Finnish Music Director is joined by the ‘most astounding pianist of our age’ (The Times) for a perfect pairing of Romantic heavyweights. Grammy Award-winning Daniil Trifonov shot to fame after winning the First Prize and Grand Prix at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 2011 and has been dazzling audiences worldwide ever since. Brahms’s epic Second Piano Concerto is the perfect showcase for his astonishing artistry. Written twenty years after the troubled birth of his First Piano Concerto, it enjoyed immediate and enduring success, largely due to the perfect balance Brahms achieves between epic scale, muscular virtuosity and its upbeat mood.

A perfectly matched companion piece comes in the form of Dvořák’s tautly dramatic Seventh Symphony, itself inspired by hearing Brahms’s turbulent Third Symphony a few months earlier. Reflecting the political struggles of the Czech nation as well as personal grief, it’s the most compellingly urgent of all his symphonies, the smouldering intensity of its opening catching fire in a thrilling mix of soaring melodies and driving rhythms.

Free pre-concert talk, 6.20pm in the auditorium: Dr Joanne Cormac, University of Nottingham, introduces the programme.