Two monumental musical masterpieces influenced by landscape and place take us from the glacial grandeur of Scandinavian mountains to the warming melodies of Bohemia’s verdant forests.

Mihhail Gerts, hailed by critics for his ‘astonishing precision, highly expressive gestures and warmth’ as ‘a name to remember’, leads the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and the ‘sensational’ (Bachtrack) violinist Simone Lamsma in two works that revel in orchestral colour and symphonic heft.

Sibelius makes much of his only foray into the concerto form with a virtuosic piece for violin as grand in scale as it is graceful in execution. Laced through with mystery, its operatic dimensions are fuelled by muscular scoring and immediately memorable melodies leading to an ecstatic finale.

Composed during the summer of 1875, Dvořák’s Fifth Symphony is a glorious hymn to the idyll of long, hazy sun-lit days, even as passing shadows flit through. Marking the beginning of his maturity as a composer, it is music of pastoral mellowness concluding in a thrilling finale led by lighting bursts of thunderous brass voices.