Kensington Symphony Orchestra returns to Cadogan Hall on Tuesday 12 May, when music director Russell Keable leads us in a performance of Nielsen’s Symphony No.5 (1921-22).

Although Nielsen asserted that he was not conscious of the influence of the First World War in writing the work, he likened it to “the division of dark and light, the battle between evil and good”. Alternately explosive and calm, his only symphony in two movements features a battle between the orchestra and a snare drummer, who is instructed to improvise “as though determined at all costs to stop the progress of the orchestra”.

Former BBC Young Musician keyboard finalist Firoze Madon joins us for Grieg’s Piano Concerto (1868), in which a lyrical Andante is bookended by a dramatic Allegro and an energetic Finale, both featuring motifs influenced by Norwegian folk music. Written when the composer was just 24, and revised for the final time just weeks before his death, it is one of his best-loved works. It
was also received positively by his fellow composer Franz Liszt, who sight-read the solo part when Grieg visited him in Rome in 1870.

The concert opens with Orchestral Variations on a Theme by N Paganini (1947), the piece that brought international renown to Boris Blacher, whose work had been deemed “degenerate” during the Second World War. Paganini’s famous melody is treated with brilliance, variety and invention throughout 16 virtuosic variations, the work’s wit and joie de vivre attesting to the
renewal of Blacher’s creative spirit after the war.