William Walton came from Oldham - maybe that's why he filled his music with sunlight. Walton's Violin Concerto is an art-deco masterpiece, made of shining steel and great sweeping curves of melody. So when it's played, as tonight, by a true icon of the violin, you'll hear exactly why back in the 1930s this Lancashire lad-made-good left British music reeling. In the USSR, meanwhile, Prokofiev was determined to knock his audiences off their feet.
So forget "The Apprentice": with its tenderness, its passion, and tune after glorious tune, there's a good reason why Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet remains one of the 20th century's best-loved ballets. Malcolm Arnold proves that for raw drama, Manchester's own history can give Shakespeare a run for his money.
