CANCELLED: Malmö SymfoniOrkester / Lugansky / Trevino

»I have loved this composer since my childhood, and my admiration for him only continues to grow.« The reserved pianist Nikolai Lugansky modestly conceals the fact that he himself is one of today’s top Rachmaninov interpreters. But his playing offers all the more impressive proof of his talent. The Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini can be seen as the Russian pianist-composer’s fifth piano concerto – a work of sophisticated instrumentation that marked Rachmaninov’s way out of a long creative crisis. Mahler, on the other hand, was plunged into a crisis by people’s response to his Fifth Symphony. »Blasted work! No-one understands it.«, he wrote after the first performance, which was given in Hamburg of all places. We cannot say for certain how often the Fifth has since been performed to resounding applause, but there can be no disputing that today it is one of Mahler’s most popular symphonies.