FROM SPAIN TO RUSSIA

Daniel Raiskin suggests a musical journey with From Spain to Russia, starting off with La procesión del Rocío by Joaquín Turina, a brief symphonic poem first performed in 1913 and composed in Paris. It is structured in two movements which portray images and impressions of Easter in his native city of Seville. From Russia we welcome two of the major figures from last century: Sergei Prókofief and his Violin Concerto nº 2, premiered in 1935 in Madrid, to be performed by the young Dutch soloist Simone Lamsma. The show ends with Dmitri Shostakovich and his Symphony nº 5, a composition with which he tried to win over the Soviet culture authorities by using a more moderate language, adding that it was “a composer’s response to justified criticism”