Yeol Eum Son plays Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto

Rachmaninov’s Third Piano concerto, they say, demands a soloist with hands of steel and a heart of gold. No worries on that score today, as the BBC Symphony Orchestra welcomes back Yeol Eum Sun, a pianist who has been described as “astonishing” and whose previous performances at the Barbican have tbrought the house down. A dream team for this mightiest of romantic piano concertos.  

Still, Rachmaninov’s world teetered on the brink of war and revolution, and conductor Joshua Weilerstein has taken that idea as his inspiration for an action-packed concert. Ravel waltzes on the edge of chaos, Osvaldo Golijov imagines a tango king as a champion boxer, and Erwin Schulhoff crackles with fierce, satirical genius in an interwar Europe that would one day destroy him. Big stories, powerfully told.