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For our Christmas Concert on Sunday 1 December we're performing Janáček's Taras Bulba, music from Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake and Borodin's Symphony No.2.

Czech composer Leo Janáček's Taras Bulba is a rhapsody for orchestra, which first premiered in 1921. The piece depicts three episodes from Gogol's original novel by the same name. The first episode focusses on a love story, culminating in the suicide of one of the lovers. The second episode depicts a story of grief, whilst the third and final episode is a fight for vengeance of the death in the second episode.

Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, which originally premiered in 1895, is possibly one of the most recognisable ballets ever written. The ballet combines stories from Russian and German folk tales to tell the story of a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The music from Swan Lake has gone on to become the focus of films such as Black Swan and was even featured in the musical Billy Elliot.

Borodin's Symphony No.2, the most significant of the composer's large works, first premiered in 1877. It took seven years for Borodin to compose, amongst many distractions, including his work as a professor of Chemistry in St Petersburg at the time. The work combines themes of folklore elements and traditional western music elements and was written in close collaboration with Rimsky-Korsakov.

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Fore Street,

Cripplegate,

London,

Greater London,

England,

EC2Y 8DA.