Proms regular Edward Gardner continues this year’s Nielsen anniversary celebrations with the Flute Concerto – a work that expresses what Nielsen perceived as the instrument’s ‘Arcadian’ quality. This gentle, pastoral quality battles, however, with darker forces, characterfully symbolised by the bass trombone.

Both Janáček’s Sinfonietta and Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem are also vivid expressions of contrast – in mood, texture and colour.

The five movements of the Sinfonietta are all scored for a different – and sometimes unlikely – combination of instruments, while the three episodes in Britten’s elegiac Sinfonia da Requiem paint different stages of mourning, from grief, to anger and finally an uneasy acceptance.

Britten
Sinfonia da Requiem 21’

Raymond Yiu
Symphony c24’
BBC commission: world premiere

interval

Nielsen
Flute Concerto 18’

Janáček
Sinfonietta 23’

Andrew Watts counter-tenor
Emily Beynon flute

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner conductor