Sibelius' much-loved tone poem Finlandia not only captures landscapes of Finland and its national identity, but also its national pride at a crucial moment in its history. His Valse Triste was originally written to accompany a tragic scene in a play, but is now much better known as a short orchestral piece in its own right.

Elspeth Dutch, leader of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra horn section, will perform Richard Strauss' Horn Concerto No. 1. This ingeniously constructed, immediately appealing, yet challenging concerto was written for Strauss' father, Franz, a horn player in the Bavarian Court Orchestra.

Beginning with his Symphony No. 4, Tchaikovsky began a musical exploration of the concept of Fate as an inescapable force. Certainly fate blasts open and closes the Symphony, but the beautiful oboe solo in the Andantino movement and the playfulness of the Scherzo make us forget for a while the inescapable force that hangs over us.