Preview at 6.30pm: The BBC Philharmonic's Chief Conductor Designate Juanjo Mena in conversation.

With 15 symphonies now to his name Kalevi Aho has drawn level with Shostakovich, though he's still some way behind his fellow-Finn, Leif Segerstam, who has an unbelievable 232 under his belt! This half-hour, four-movement 15th Symphony was jointly commissioned by the BBC Philharmonic and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra and its world premiere is set to be one of the most eagerly anticipated events of the season.

Tchaikovsky adored Mozart and, overtly or otherwise, several of his pieces pay homage to the older master, not least his Rococo Variations - the closest thing he ever wrote to a cello concerto, complete with a Mozart-sized orchestra. The theme itself isn't a genuine antique, but rather a Tchaikovskian pastiche, but there's nothing artificial about the way the variations develop, wearing their virtuosity lightly, the soloist leading the way through this delicious concoction of musical ingenuity, stratospherically high writing and insouciant charm. With Alban Gerhardt centre-stage, there's bound to be a sense of collaborative glee, too, as this most engaging of cellists leads his merry band.

It's the violin that takes centre-stage as the protagonist in Rimsky-Korsakov's bewitching Scheherazade who, with her seductive and wiley story-telling in The Tales of the Arabian Nights, avoids death from the misogynous Sultan Sharyar through her cliff-hanging tales. The score must be among the most evocative of all depictions of the exotic glitter of the East - complete with an opulent evocation of Rimsky's beloved ocean in 'The Sea and Sinbad's Ship'. It's extraordinary to think that he was essentially self-taught as a composer and that, by his own admission, he started out as a bad and careless piano student.