Alexander Vedernikov conducts Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky by Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, P. I., Sviridov, Georgy, Ó (2019/2019), Seoltóir Alexander Vedernikov (II), Barbican Centre, London, United Kingdom

A heartwarming musical trip to cold Russia ending with Rachmaninoff’s most infamous and intoxicating dance with love and death, the unstoppable Paganini Rhapsody. Former Bolshoi chief conductor Alexander Vedernikov returns to the Orchestra for an evening of music from Russia that will embrace you like a warm fur coat, but not before Gregory Sviridov’s vivid Suite from The Blizzard – a film based on Pushkin’s dramatic comedy – has plunged you deep into the swirling snowstorms, driving winds and political chill of a Soviet winter circa 1964. Pianist Andrei Korobeinikov joins us for Rachmaninoff’s tantalizing dance with love and death, the Paganini Rhapsody, before the icicle-clear melodies and bracing dances of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic celebration of winter.