Perhaps Nielsen’s best-loved symphony, ‘The Inextinguishable’ seems to encapsulate all that is greatest in his music, in its thrilling dynamism and gripping drama. Written in 1914 as Europe plunged into the First World War, the symphony was, in Nielsen’s words, a defiant expression of ‘the elemental will to life’ in the face of unprecedented destruction. Composed that same year, Ravel’s Le tombeau de Couperin turns to the glories of France’s musical past for solace, while Sibelius’s The Oceanides evokes classical myth in a tone-poem of mesmerising tension. Celebrated Swedish mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter joins the orchestra in Zemlinksy’s ravishing Maeterlinck settings.
Â鶹ԼÅÄ SO Plus Intro
6.00pm Fountain Room
A free introduction to the music in tonight’s concert with Andrew Mellor.
