Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring

Twice within a century, Europe was shattered by war and revolution. And each time, composers channelled the spirit of the age into music that shocked some and gripped others. Stravinsky’s taboo-smashing ballet provides the final blast tonight, as Vasily Petrenko conducts this explosive opening concert of the RPO’s new season. But first he explores the rich, strange and sometimes violent new sounds that Alban Berg created in the Vienna of Klimt and Freud, and joins the superb British pianist Paul Lewis in a piano concerto composed in a city under siege. Some heard the Emperor Concerto as a tribute to Napoleon – but Beethoven felt differently, saying: ‘If I understood war as well as I understand music, I would conquer him.’