Did Tchaikovsky reveal some of his most intimate feelings and passion in the music of his Symphony No 4 in F minor? The work is regarded as a semi-autobiographical tour de force, in which the composer seeks, through music, to rise above misery and embrace joy.

Chief conductor and artistic director of Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Nicholas Milton, says,. "It's a work that I have always loved. It is so intense, so emotional, and it never fails to excite and move audiences profoundly. I always love to end our series with a bang and there is no more powerful, more gripping work in the repertoire."

To introduce the final concert in the CSO's 2016 series Milton has chosen Shimmering Blue, a work by this year's featured Australian composer, Nigel Westlake, "a really sparkling work for full symphony orchestra," as Milton describes it. He feels that audiences have responded so well throughout the year to Westlake's music. "For me, Nigel's music is incredibly original, fresh, and above all, surprising. The melodies and harmonies constantly take delightful and unexpected turns and his orchestrations are brilliantly imaginative."

Next year a series of three one-hour concerts in the Gordon Darling Hall at the National Portrait Gallery will be devoted entirely to Australian music, linking music with art exhibitions, While there is only one Australian work programmed in next year's Llewellyn series, Sculthorpe's String Sonata No 3 (Jabiru Dreaming), it is, Milton says, "a major and important landmark work in Sculthorpe's oeuvre." And he adds, "I have programmed quite a bit of wonderful and attractive Australian music in the Prom concert."

The third work in the CSO's November concert is Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, a brilliant work that has featured in numerous films including The Story of 3 Loves, Somewhere in Time and Groundhog Day. Milton has invited Australian pianist Kristian Chong to perform as soloist in this work.

Chong has played with Milton and the CSO before. "I love working with Nick," he says. "He has to be one of the most intuitive and responsive conductors ... and his standards are very, very high. He just asks for the best."

Chong loves chamber music but says that concertos are always fun, "perhaps the most fun because you're completely in control but at the same time playing with people that you really click with. You're just on another level."

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is made up of 24 variations. These are always all played unlike those in another work by Rachmaninov, Variations on a Theme of Corelli, a work of which Rachmaninov himself, writing to his friend Nikolai Medtner, said, "Not once have I played these (variations) all in continuity. Whenever coughing would increase I would skip the next variation. .. but I hope that you will play all of them."

Chong says, "You can't do this with the Paganini Variations because they are in the orchestra so you can't just decide which ones to leave out."

The slow 18th variation, played "upside down" in D flat major, is the best known of the Paganini variations. "Why is this so popular?" Chong asks before answering, "I suppose it's because it's just beautiful – beautifully constructed. It approaches a romantic ideal that many people strive for and dream of." Chong explains that Rachmaninov mixes traditional 19th-century harmony with jazz influences and finds a middle ground so that it is this harmony that is actually the most arresting feature of his works.

The 24th variation is reputed to be the most difficult and Rachmaninov was known to take a glass of creme de menthe before playing it himself."It is difficult," Chong says, "but I think the 15th variation is more scary – two pages of blistering solo piano when the orchestra takes a break. And there's quite a virtuosic variation before that one where you've got to fight against the orchestra and quite often the pianist can't be heard – that's intentionally done by Rachmaninov because then the piano emerges and you've suddenly got this tempo where the music has to be light and almost joking and yet serious at the same time. It's very exposed and very fast."

Chong pays tribute to his Australian teachers and especially to his teachers at the Royal Academy in London, Christopher Elton and Piers Lane. "I'm very critical of myself," he says. "I'm always trying to do better. You have to be honest with yourself."

Milton says of his orchestra,"We have an extraordinary and unique relationship with our audience. The orchestra is passionate and energised, they play with extraordinary enthusiasm and an inner fire that audiences respond to."