Proms 2022 Prom 15: Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony

All is for the best, in this best of all possible worlds! That’s the motto of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide, but the swinging trumpets that launch its overture are just one side of the musical American Dream – whether it’s the soaring nostalgia of Barber’s sunlit Violin Concerto (played by former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Johan Dalene) or the urban energy of George Walker’s altogether edgier 1970s classic. And then Jordan de Souza and the BBC Symphony Orchestra spin on a dime and plunge into Tchaikovsky’s autobiographical Fourth Symphony: terror, triumph and one man’s life-or-death struggle with the force that he called Fate. In other words, the ultimate symphonic thriller.

Image: Johan Dalene © Mats Bäcker