Prom 5: Rachmaninov and Shostakovich, Royal Albert Hall

If you can listen to Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No 2 without thinking of the doomed affair in Brief Encounter, then you are very young or very high-browed indeed. But for most people, those surging melodies and passionate strings will always sum up the tussle between love and duty.

Played in this concert by the terrific BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Thomas Søndergård, the soloist tonight is the dynamic 26-year-old Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov, grand prize winner of the 2009 London International Piano Competition. Musical fireworks are guaranteed.

This bumper concert opens with the stirring Sibelius Symphony No 7, and in the second half comes the gigantic Shostakovich Symphony No 10, one of many landmark Russian works that mark the centenary of the Revolution in this Proms season.

Behzod Abduraimuv. Photo: Nissor Abdourazakov

Composed after the death of Stalin in 1953, it expresses the 'thaw' that followed the years of tyranny, and there are audible green shoots of a brighter, lighter future. Listen out for Dmitri Shostakovich’s musical signature – some letters of his name spelled out in the notes DSCH.

How does that work? In German notation an S is E flat, and an H is B natural. Try this out on any instrument or computer programme before the concert, or find a link to DSCH: start on D, go up to E flat, down to C and down again to B. Hum it on the Tube on the way to the Royal Albert Hall, and you will be right at the heart of the piece.

General booking opens Saturday 13 May, 9:00.