Lights in the Dark

WELCOME TO

All art reflects human society – all that is good and all that is bad in the world. And yet, for centuries, composers have produced some of their most profound work in the most testing times. Societies change, politicians argue, people fight: and yet music endures and evolves, bringing people together, helping us find meaning in our own times and sometimes – hopefully – showing us the way to a better future.

I believe strongly that music has the power to unite us, and that whatever our differences, in the concert hall we all share the same emotions. So this season, in my concerts with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, we’re exploring and celebrating composers who found themselves at odds with their societies. Pieces like Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ Concerto and Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ Symphony are so stirring that we forget that they were composed in the middle of worldwide conflicts. Berg and Stravinsky were both booed when these pieces were first played – but today, they’re true classics, and I can’t wait to conduct them.

Then there are composers who faced exile and adversity and transformed the experience into pure life force – as thrilling as Korngold’s film scores, as romantic as Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of

Paganini, or as energising as Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Other great creative spirits faced prejudice simply because of who they were, but I challenge you to find music more communicative, or more humane, than Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement, or Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony.

These are inspiring stories which challenge us all to build a better world today. Joining us to share these experiences are four soloists who feel as passionately as we do about this magnificent music – Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, Paul Lewis, Bruce Liu and Roderick Williams.

But even the greatest music is silent if no one hears it, and the most vital element is you. I extend a heartfelt invitation to come and join us at the Southbank Centre this season. In return, we’ll play our hearts out. Music brings people together; let’s share it this season.

Vasily Petrenko Music Director, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Image credit: Ben Wright

Sunday 26 January 2025, 3pm

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Berg Three Pieces for Orchestra

Beethoven Piano Concerto No.5, ‘Emperor’ Stravinsky The Rite of Spring

Music thrives on change: for centuries, great composers have channelled the spirit of their age into music that shocked some and gripped others, but which has never lost its power to thrill. Stravinsky’s taboo-smashing ballet provides the final blast tonight as Vasily Petrenko conducts this explosive opening concert of the RPO’s new series. But first, he explores the rich, strange and sometimes violent new sounds that Alban Berg created in the Vienna of Klimt and Mahler. And he is joined by the superb British pianist Paul Lewis in a masterpiece that broke all the rules and still sounds just as exciting today. It’s the concerto they call the ‘Emperor’: daring, majestic and filled from beginning to end with the irrepressible genius of Ludwig van Beethoven.

Vasily Petrenko Conductor

Paul Lewis Piano

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Sunday 23 March 2025, 7.30pm

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Korngold The Sea Hawk: Main Theme, Reunion and Finale Rachmaninov Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini Bartók Concerto for Orchestra

Rachmaninov’s world was turned completely upside down by the Great War. Severed from his roots, he fled Russia and began a career as a globetrotting pianist. His devilish set of variations, performed here by Bruce Liu – winner of the 2021 International Chopin Competition –embodies this nomadic life: written in Switzerland, premiered in America, based on a tune by Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini and infused with Rachmaninov’s own Russian style. Composers Erich Korngold and Béla Bartók were also forced by politics to leave their homes: both fled from fascism to the New World, and Korngold’s swashbuckling film score is practically a hymn to freedom. Bartók’s spectacular Concerto for Orchestra, meanwhile, is more than just a multi-coloured showcase, it’s a struggle between darkness and light, crowned by a mighty shout of joy.

Vasily Petrenko Conductor

Bruce Liu Piano

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Sunday 27 April 2025, 3pm

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Sibelius Finlandia

Weill Four Walt Whitman Songs

Shostakovich Symphony No.7, ‘Leningrad’

As Hitler’s armies surrounded the city of Leningrad and bombs rained down on a starving population, Shostakovich sat down and –somehow – composed his Seventh Symphony. Written for massed battalions of musicians, this is music from the front line – a roar of defiance from an unbreakable city – and Vasily Petrenko’s recording was described by one critic as ‘devastating’. It’s a stupendous climax to a concert that’s all about struggle and resistance: whether it’s Sibelius defying Russian imperialism with a mighty hymn to his native Finland, or the poet Walt Whitman’s pleas for tolerance, set to music by the exiled Kurt Weill. Singing the Four Walt Whitman Songs today is the fabulous British baritone Roderick Williams: a born communicator at the heart of a truly epic programme.

Vasily Petrenko Conductor

Roderick Williams OBE Baritone

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

This concert has been developed with the Southbank Centre, with further details to be announced.

Wednesday 25 June 2025, 7.30pm

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Dorothy Howell Lamia

Florence Price Piano Concerto in One Movement

Tchaikovsky Symphony No.4

For centuries, even the most gifted composers have found themselves persecuted or marginalised simply because of who they were. As a gay man in Tsarist Russia, Tchaikovsky knew what it was to be an outsider, and he poured all his emotions into his Fourth Symphony: a no-holds-barred emotional autobiography, pulsing with melody and torn by raw and dangerous passions. There’s no shortage of great melodies in the first half of the concert, too, as Petrenko champions British composer Dorothy Howell’s Lamia – a wildly romantic tale of forbidden love – and the lovely piano concerto by the African-American composer Florence Price. Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, making her RPO debut, is the soloist in music that was side-lined for decades and is only now receiving its due.

Vasily Petrenko Conductor

Jeneba Kanneh-Mason Piano

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall

Tickets from £15*

Under 18s: £5* (only valid in selected areas)

Online: southbankcentre.co.uk

Phone: 020 3879 9555

*Booking fees apply online (£3.50) and over the phone (£4). There are no booking fees for Southbank Centre Members and Supporters Circles.

Group discounts

Groups save 35% off all ticket prices. £5 tickets for schools and colleges are available for all performances, subject to availability. Visit rpo.co.uk/groups for details.

Join the RPO Club

RPO Club members save 50% on up to two tickets for each of these concerts. See rpo.co.uk/club or call 020 7608 8840 for details and to join.

All details correct at time of going to press. Artists may be subject to change. Notes by Richard Bratby, richardbratby.co.uk.

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