A piece of Richard Strauss juvenilia opens this concert as proof that the teenager was already a mature artist: this Horn Concerto is closely connected with the composer’s father, a virtuoso at the Munich Court Orchestra. Clearly, the young Strauss was familiar with his father’s instrument. Of Prokofiev’s five piano concertos, No.3 has proven the most popular, exhibiting pristine neoclassical traits with relentless energy. Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.4 marks a turning point in the composer’s career, touching on fate, melancholia and depression through a series of dramatic twists and turns, taking the concertgoer into the inner sanctum of Tchaikovsky’s heart.