BBC NOW 2019-20 Season Britten Weekend: Britten and Russia

‘Write for the cello everything that your heart tells you, never mind how difficult it is!’

Rostropovich encouraged Britten. Britten’s quasi-concerto is big-hearted and intense, placing immense demands on its soloist.

There’s also an epic quality to Shostakovich’s tenth which starts in dark desolation and ends in dazzling brightness, giving one of music’s most brutal evocations of violence and terror along the way. Its conclusion seems to speak as much of barely-suppressed fury and raw defiance as it does of glorious triumph.