Jurowski conducts at Royal Festival Hall: 4 May

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Principal Conductor Vladimir Jurowski is joined by soprano Christine Brewer for Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs alongside a programme of Wagner's Overture to Die Meistersinger and Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony.

By the late 1880s, Tchaikovsky had at last found some solace and relief from the catastrophes which carved a tragic path through his earlier career. This peace can be heard throughout the Fifth Symphony with bright shafts of melodic optimism bursting through the troubled orchestral shadows.

Like Tchaikovsky, in periods of darkness Richard Strauss turned to music. By 1949, after witnessing the destruction of his beloved Germany from within, he wrote his final goodbye in a set of four touching songs, sung this evening by soprano Christine Brewer.

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