Works by Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov – two well-matched composers, with the great Russian musician Mikhail Pletnev, who has been friends with András Keller and Concerto Budapest for many years, returning to serve as the guest soloist. Vocalise, the emblematic Rachmaninov composition slated to open the programme, was in its original form a song with piano-, the ‘text’ of which consisted of the vocalisation of a single vowel of the singer’s choosing. This melody, so amazing even in its simplicity, went on to inspire a plethora of transcriptions, of which tonight we will hear the one the composer wrote for orchestra, and that is perhaps the most riveting of them all. Following on its heels, the Piano Concerto No. 2 shows even with its opening notes that there is still much to admire about the most popular tendencies in Rachmaninov’s music, and the work, which pulled the composer out of his creative crisis at the turn of the last century, also presents us with the virtuoso piano playing of one of the most skilled performers in the world. In the second part, we will hear Tchaikovsky’s final symphony, which has often moved audiences to applause with its third movement, and which the composer himself praised with the words “I love it as I never loved any one of my musical offspring before!”