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Distance and enchantment: whenever Julian Anderson creates a new work, we’re in for a musical experience that ruffles through memories as it ravishes the ears. His keenly awaited Second Symphony takes its cue from old photographs of Prague: a city dear to conductor Semyon Bychkov, and to the exiled Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů, whose exuberant double concerto falls into the hands of sisters Katia and Marielle Labèque. As for Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances – well, it’s been described as a secret ballet score, a concerto for orchestra and a symphony by any other name. But every note glows with the sorrow of exile, and the undimmed energy of a composer whose inspiration burned fiercer than ever in this last, bittersweet masterpiece.

Image: Katia and Marielle Labèque © Umberto Nicoletti