Belgian National Orchestra, Kochanovsky & Melnikov

The first symphonic concert of the Prokofiev Festival begins with the suite from his ballet The Steel Step, a work that depicts Soviet life in a busy railway station and then in a factory. This is followed by the Second Piano Concerto, performed by the Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov. Prokofiev reconstructed this technically demanding four-movement work in 1923 after the first version of 1913 was lost in the flames of the Russian Revolution. A year later, in Paris, Prokofiev began work on his Second Symphony, ​“a work of steel and iron”, the undisputed apex of his Expressionist period.