Performances of Dmitry Shostakovich at BBC Proms

One of Europe’s greatest orchestras returns to the Proms. In the first of two concerts they pair two contrasting symphonies – Beethoven’s joyous Second and Shostakovich’s Fifth, written under the shadow of his public humiliation under Stalin's regime.

A ghostly ferryman transports departed souls in Rachmaninov’s Isle of the Dead, while Shostakovich’s bitterly passionate Symphony No. 11 emerges from the violence of Russia’s ‘Bloody Sunday’ massacre. Music by Outi Tarkiainen offers hope and new life.

Belfast’s Ulster Orchestra and its dynamic music director Rafael Payare present the Proms premiere of Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto, a mellow, good-humoured work paired here with two lively first symphonies by Beethoven and Shostakovich.

Semyon Bychkov conducts the Czech Philharmonic in Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8 – the most personal of the composer’s many confrontations with the horror of war. Love dominates the first half, in music from the operas Eugene Onegin and The Bartered Bride.