Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dance No. 1 is a work that is fully representative of the composer’s late style with its curious, shifting harmonies. The work has almost Prokofiev-like grotesquerie and focuses on individual instrumental tone colours throughout.

The ‘Emperor’ Concerto is Beethoven’s most innovative, and for the most part, heroic work. The ‘Emperor’ combines a flamboyant gesture for soloist and orchestra together, seemingly at once declamatory and improvisatory.

The great Czech composer, Dvořák is a product of the Romantic musical tradition, but represents its later flowering towards a proud nationalism. This trend, exemplified compellingly in this symphony, draws its inspiration more from the Bohemian folk music of the time into a complex and expressively nuanced symphonic language