Michael Berkeley introduces a live broadcast from the Royal Albert Hall , London, featuring the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by their music director Riccardo Chailly. The orchestra performs the UK premiere of Three Preludes by Tristan Keuris, a leading Dutch composer who died last year, and Rachmaninov's popular Piano Concerto No 2 in C minor, with the talented young Russian pianist Arkady Volodos in the spotlight. The evening concludes with The Dance of the Seven Veils from the Richard Strauss opera Salome, preceded by Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin. The interval, filmed partly in Budapest, explores the background to Bartok's spectacular ballet score.
