PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

Of the great cello concertos in history, the one by Antonín Dvořák, composed in the United States, is probably the best-loved. A work characterised by profound melancholy, its composition was shadowed by constant homesickness and the sudden illness and death of a sweetheart from his youth. It will be played in Lahti by Jakob Koranyi, a Swedish cellist who rose to international prominence in the early 2000s by winning practically every cello competition in his country.

The Russian national romantic Modest Mussorgsky wrote himself into history with his Pictures at an Exhibition. This monument of narrative music takes us to an art gallery, where paintings by Viktor Hartmann are transformed into melodies. Originally composed for piano, Pictures at an Exhibition is better known in the arrangement by Maurice Ravel, who turns the paintings into even more vibrant Technicolor versions.