Nottingham: Ashkenazy conducts Shostakovich 10

Vladimir Ashkenazy brings with him music by two composers with whom he’ll be forever associated. Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto emerged from a summer break in 1890, the young composer modelling it on Grieg’s, but then revising it substantially nearly 30 years later. Youthful high spirits run free throughout, with sprung rhythms reflecting its impetuous spirit. It’s a perfect fit for the soloist, Daniel Kharitonov, one of the brightest rising stars of his generation.

Shostakovich completed his Tenth Symphony just a few months after the death of Stalin, under whose shadow the composer had worked for much of his career. The dictator’s grip is felt through much of the symphony, particularly in the furious five-minute scherzo which tears into the heart of this 20th-century masterpiece. But Shostakovich also celebrates the resilience of the artist in the face of oppression and etches his initials – D-S-C-H – into the symphony’s subtext, shouting them loudly in the defiantly upbeat finale.