VFO / MÄKËLA / WANG

Completed in 1926, Rachmaninoff’s Fourth Piano Concerto ended a prolonged compositional silence following his emigration to the United States upon the Russian Revolution. Blending his Romantic DNA with more modernist language, the work sits a tensely contemplative central Largo between two fierily restless Allegro vivaces, the second a virtuoso tour de force for the pianist. Mahler wrote his Fifth Symphony in the summers of 1901 and 1902, just after meeting his wife-to-be, Alma. Its first movement is a funeral march punctuated by two trio sections, one shrilly swirling, the other more sober; the first trio then forms the basis of the second movement, which builds to a triumphant brass chorale. Next come a Scherzo featuring folk and city waltzes, and a strings-and-harp-only Adagietto, conceived as a love declaration to Alma. The joyful Rondo-Finale then reimagines the Adagietto theme, before climaxing on the second movement chorale.