The Concert

Tchaikovsky faces his demons in the fate-filled Fourth Symphony, before the ravishing pastoral music of English composer Vaughan Williams.

The Music

Tchaikovsky soars out of the depths towards a glorious resolution in his Symphony No 4, a work that is perhaps the most melodically inspired of all the Russian composer’s symphonies.

Vaughan Williams’ complex pastoralism tempers the Russian intensity. Flos Campi, a suite for solo viola, orchestra and chorus, journeys from angst-ridden passion to the world of folk and full-blooded Romanticism. The cantata Dona nobis pacem is a powerful plea for peace, composed between two world wars.

The Performers

Antoine Tamestit, an LSO Spotlight Artist, is one of the viola’s true magicians, and in both works you’ll hear the London Symphony Chorus, a true wonder of orchestral vocal ensembles.

One of the most towering symphonic structures in our whole literature.
Musicologist Hans Keller on Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4