Daniel Harding leads a whirlwind musical tour from Russia to the heights of an Alpine peak.

Prokofiev wrote that his Second Violin Concerto was the product of his ‘nomadic concert-tour existence’, which took him from Paris to Baku, Madrid to Morocco. Despite this, its fluid, lyrical melodies carry more than a hint of the composer’s homeland of Russia, to which he was about to return, along with tinges of Spain in the finale’s clicking castanets.

Strauss’ Alpine Symphony is a different journey altogether. A vivid story of extremes, illustrated by a vast orchestra, it follows an epic ascent to the heights of an Alpine peak, with every daring step, sublime view and terrifying force of nature captured in the music.