BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oramo by Beethoven, Pejačević, De (2020/2020), Director musical Sakari Oramo, Barbican Centre, London, United Kingdom

A landmark concert as the Orchestra and Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo resurrect an explosive, elegiac and rhapsodic symphony once buried by history and prejudice. Dora Pejačević was born into the comfort of Eastern European aristocracy but never took the easy path in life. She travelled miles to be challenged by the greatest minds of the age and was thrust into creative overdrive by the horrors of the First World War. In 1916, when her Symphony in F-sharp minor started to take shape, Pejačević dropped aristocratic mannerisms and politeness, beginning to write with a blazing authenticity that fills this explosive, elegiac, rhapsodic symphony. Sakari Oramo conducts it here alongside works by Beethoven that speak of light and love brought to a world of darkness and fear, including his Fourth Piano Concerto with stunning soloist, Paul Lewis.