The young pianist Nikola Meeuwsen is a sensation. In 2025, he became the first Dutchman to win the Queen Elisabeth Competition, promptly becoming an international star. Combine his charisma with Rachmaninoff’s melodic Second Piano Concerto, and you know it: this will be unforgettable. And then Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is yet to come, a monumental piece with a hidden depth: it sounds vital and energetic, yet has a venomous undertone.

Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is an indestructible crowd-pleaser. From the very first menacing notes, you surrender and are swept along in a dramatic ‘story’ that leaves no one unmoved. That it sounds so heartfelt is logical: with this piece, the composer overcame a deep depression. You can therefore hear how his primal Russian melancholy gradually gives way to ecstatic joy. Also Russian, but more modern, is Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. At first listen, it seems like typical Soviet music with grand gestures and energetic marches. But the piece is full of hidden pain and resistance and is a masterful indictment of the dictatorship.

Program

S. Rachmaninoff
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
D. Shostakovich
Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47