Shostakovich's 'Leningrad' Symphony

As Hitler’s armies surrounded the city of Leningrad, and bombs rained down on a starving population, Dmitri Shostakovich sat down and – somehow - composed his Seventh Symphony. Written for massed battalions of musicians, this is music from the front line – a roar of defiance from an unbreakable city – and Vasily Petrenko’s recording was described by one critic as ‘devastating’. It’s a stupendous climax to a concert that’s all about struggle and resistance: whether it’s Sibelius defying Russian imperialism with a mighty hymn to his native Finland, or the poet Walt Whitman’s pleas for tolerance, set to music by the exiled Kurt Weill. Singing them today is the fabulous British baritone Roderick Williams: a born communicator at the heart of a truly epic programme.