This concert will open with two of the biggest hits of the 19th century, Mikhail Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture, from an opera that set in motion a new wave of Russian music, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto in B minor. The soloist for the latter piece will be Boris Berezovky, winner of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1990 and one of the world's finest and most dedicated virtuosos. After the interval, the audience will hear one of the most enigmatic compositions of the 20th century, Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. The masterpiece was written in 1937, not long after official cultural policy labelled his amusingly title opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District as undesirable. Some music historians claim that it was with his Symphony No. 5 that set Shostakovich off on the bumpy path towards "socialist realist music” – and the work was indeed popular with Stalin's cultural police. Meanwhile, others point to the delicate and unwaveringly precise irony of the piece, suggesting that Shostakovich's works were never written to serve the system – whatever the system's opinion of them. Regardless of whether we accept the arguments of either side, and whether symphonic music is capable of conveying any form of political message, Shostokovich's Fifth Symphony is undeniably among the 20th century's most exciting orchestral compositions. Presented by Concerto Budapest

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