SIMON RATTLE / KIRILL GERSTEIN

Ligeti was furious when he learned that the music from his ‘Atmospheres’ had been used by Kubrick in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’. And yet, more than fifty years later, the images still haunt our memories, making this work one of the composer’s most famous. In the miraculous Prelude to ‘Lohengrin’, Wagner unfurls a melody from the high notes of the violin that plunges gently downwards, as if foreshadowing the drama to come. His most zealous admirer, Richard Strauss, was reminded of this when he composed ‘Ein Heldenleben’: the symphonic virtuosity of this orchestral wizard reaches its climax, with an iconic and fearsome violin solo completing the work’s passage into posterity. Ten years later, in 1909, Rachmaninov completed what many consider to be the ultimate Concerto: three quarters of an hour terribly demanding for the pianist, formal inventiveness at every turn, and some of the most beautiful cantilenas in the repertoire.