Dreaming of Peace

Peace: a dream or a reality? The end of Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, .composed in the months before the outbreak of WWII, «starts like a prayer but ends in a scream»., according to this concert's star soloist, Janine Jansen. This draws a parallel with the pain and despair of Symphony N° 10, Dmitri Shostakovich’s unequivocal portrait of a brutal communist regime, composed upon the death of Josef Stalin. Yet, adversity will be overcome as the London Symphony Orchestra leads us in search of that essential human construct - hope.