Prokofiev and Shostakovich

The evening

Hear Prokofiev at his most riotously witty, while Shostakovich juggles despair and stoicism in a beautiful, virtuosic violin concerto.

Prokofiev’s fairytale opera The Love for Three Oranges, about a prince cursed to fall for a trio of oranges, is both comic and grotesque thanks to the composer’s blend of biting harmonies, driving rhythms and tender lyricism. If anything, the music from Prokofiev’s earlier opera Chout (The Buffoon) is even more savage and satirical. You can hear the distilled brilliance of both operas in these masterful suites.

Shostakovich’s 1967 Violin Concerto No 2 is a dark, brooding, bleak work. Perhaps even elegiac: the composer, who lived under Soviet repression, was by then in declining health and perhaps facing up to his mortality.

LSO Principal Guest Conductor Gianandrea Noseda, a renowned conductor of Russian music, joins one of the world’s greatest violin virtuosos, Leonidas Kavakos, for this concert of vibrant colour and intense emotion.