Tchaikovsky Revealed

The evening

Few composers’ lives are more tangled up with their music than Tchaikovsky’s. His Fourth Symphony is practically an autobiography in sound: a no-holds-barred self-portrait of a composer wrestling with his demons and telling the tale in some of the most glorious sounds ever created for a full orchestra. Intrigued? Today, multi-award-winning writer and historian Leah Broad, conductor Adam Hickox and the full RPO raise its bonnet and uncover its secrets – using anecdotes and live examples to explain the personal dramas and musical masterstrokes that make this one of the most thrilling (and popular) of great symphonies. If you know your Tchaikovsky, you might be surprised. And if you don’t, there’s no livelier way to get inside a masterpiece, and discover what makes it tick.