USA 2020: West Palm Beach, FL

Opening the concert is Walton’s Portsmouth Point Overture, a musical picture-postcard of the seaside town that charmingly evokes the frivolity and carefreeness of a day at the beach. Acclaimed international concert pianist Khatia Buniatishvili follows with a performance of Liszt’s Piano Concerto No.2, a unique and fantastical work that creates worlds of light and shade in the relationships between the piano, woodwind and strings.

An icon of Russian Romanticism, Rachmaninov’s Symphony No.2 rarely fails to stir the senses. A seven-note theme from the lower strings in the opening lays the groundwork for the deep and enthralling Adagio, one of the most memorable moments in the symphony. The final movement opens with a unique energy that sounds more of a Hollywood show-tune than a Romantic Russian symphony, perhaps foreshadowing the new home he exiled himself to after the Russian Revolution of 1917.