There is a well-known legend about the composer and violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini, whose contemporaries believed he was playing so well, he must have made a pact with the devil himself. A devilish violinist of our time is certainly the unbelievably good Sergei Krylov, who has marked past seasons of the orchestra with his incredible interpretations. The devil’s work continues with Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre (Dance of Death), followed by an exclusive – Gustav Mahler’s symphonic poem The Farewell, which was subsequently edited only to become the first movement of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2.