Unearthed Liverpool Cult Classics

The trailblazing book that jump-started the sexual revolution

Awarded the Royal title in 1957, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra presents its schedule of concerts under the aegis of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society, which offered its first event on March 12, 1840. Alone among Britain's orchestral societies, the RLPS owns its own concert hall, a 1939 art deco structure designed by Herbert J. Rowse. It is the U.K.'s oldest continuing professional symphony orchestra. Vasily Petrenko was appointed principal conductor of the orchestra in September 2006 and in September 2009 became chief conductor.

In Vienna, Alexander Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker conducted experiments that could be seen as a middle road between the rigorous writing of Brahms, the orchestral opulence of Richard Strauss and the dodecaphonic radicalism of Schönberg, Berg and Webern. Unfortunately their experiments were cut short when the Nazis came to power and banned their music. Vasily Petrenko's colourful and imaginative conducting reminds us of these two composers' central importance for the history of early 20th-century music.