Moritz Gnann conducts the first of two concerts in the orchestra鈥檚 visit to Bucharest.
This evening鈥檚 concert opens with Music for Orchestra (1912) from Rudi Stephan 鈥� a composer whose promising career was cut brutally short when a sniper shot and killed the 28-year-old on the Eastern Front.
We also hear Haydn鈥檚 joyous C major Cello Concerto 鈥� presumed lost until 1961, when it turned up the National Museum in Prague. Whilst Haydn himself was born on the Hungarian border 鈥� his much-loved concerto sings with all the elegance and flair of an Italian tenor.
Enescu鈥檚 Rumanian Rhapsody No. 2, with its vivid Romanian rhythms and an air of spontaneity, is inward and reflective and is based on a popular 19th-century ballad.
Closing this evening is Shostakovich鈥檚 Ninth Symphony - a profoundly brave riposte to Stalin, written as the Second World War drew to a close.
