Whenever one of Portugal's most distinguished pianists returns to the stage, the music seems to concentrate around him with unusual intensity. Heir to a rare and important pianistic lineage, Artur Pizarro joins the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra and its principal conductor, Antonio Pirolli, for a programme of pure virtuosity.

Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 2 remains one of the greatest tests in the repertoire: a score conceived with youthful audacity, lost during the Revolution and recreated with even greater force. The vast cadence of the first movement, the relentless scherzo, the sombre mood of the march and the fierce finale demand absolute mastery of both technique and expressiveness from the soloist, areas in which Artur Pizarro excels.

Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade, on the other hand, requires orchestral virtuosity of a different order: sparkling colours, an exciting narrative to the sound of the solo violin and an intoxicating plot of a thousand and one imagined nights. Under the baton of Antonio Pirolli, the orchestra becomes narrator and traveller, sailing through stormy seas to luminous idylls and the dizzying splendour of the Festival of Baghdad.