London Philharmonic Orchestra: Divine Tragedy

Vladimir Jurowski conducts music by Taneyev, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius – all inspired by tragedy.

'There is no greater pain than to recall a time of happiness in a time of misery.' So wrote Tchaikovsky, quoting Dante, at the top of the score for his tempestuous tone poem Francesca da Rimini, which recounts in music the tragic tale of a woman torn from her love and forced to marry another.

Here Vladimir Jurowski frames Tchaikovsky's vivid, brutal work with Sergei Taneyev's Opus 1 – his heartfelt response to words by Tolstoy infused with Russian folk and liturgical music – and Sibelius's pining Second Symphony, a hope-fuelled work that tells both of broad, national struggles and painful domestic tragedies.