Jonathan Dove has become a regular feature of Cambridge Philharmonic’s programmes, and his vivid choral writing continues to thrill choirs and audiences around the world. His song cycle The Passing of the Year – dedicated to his mother – sets poems by Blake, Dickinson, Peele, Nash, and Tennyson, and is a virtuosic celebration of the movement of the seasons.

Contemporary American composer Libby Larsen’s choral cycle Alaska Spring is a setting of the poetry of Tom Sexton, Poet Laureate of Alaska. The musical and poetic landscapes speak of the frozen North Country; a mirror to Rachmaninov’s imagery in his Second Symphony.

Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2 is a swan song for his homeland which was facing such fundamental changes to its social and political landscape. Its luscious nostalgia pines for the Tchaikovsky-infused Romantic Russia of the 19th Century; but the violent march of modernity is never far in the distance.