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12 Aug 2018, Royal Albert Hall

20:00 Sun 12 Aug 2018 Next Event

Prom 41: Edward Gardner conducts Elgar & Vaughan Williams

20:00 Sun 12 Aug 2018 Royal Albert Hall

The conflict of war runs through this concert by Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Vaughan Williams’s beautiful cantata Dona nobis pacem and Lili Boulanger’s Pour les funerailles d’un soldat frame Elgar’s elegiac Cello Concerto.

Performances & Interviews

20:20

The story behind Vaughan Williams's Dona nobis pacem

Hannah Conway discusses VW's cantata Dona nobis pacem with Kate Kennedy and AC Grayling.

Aug '18BBC Radio 3

20:19

The life and music of Lili Boulanger

Caroline Rae and Caroline Potter discuss the life and music of Lili Boulanger.

Aug '18BBC Radio 3

03:05

Watch a special visualisation of Elgar's Cello Concerto from the 2016 Proms

See the cello in a new light as Sol Gabetta performs Elgar's Cello Concerto.

Jul '16BBC Radio 3

Programme

- - Lili Boulanger
  - Pour les funérailles d'un soldat(9 mins)
- - Edward Elgar
  - Cello Concerto in E minor(28 mins)
- - interval
- - Ralph Vaughan Williams
  - Dona nobis pacem(36 mins)

Performers

Sophie Bevan
soprano
soprano
Neal Davies
bass-baritone
bass-baritone
Alexandre Duhamel
baritone
baritone
Jean‐Guihen Queyras
cello
cello
BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Edward Gardner
conductor
conductor

Composers

About This Event

War casts its long shadow over this Prom given by Edward Gardner and the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus – part of this season’s musical survey suggested by the centenary of the end of the First World War.

A precursor to Britten’s War Requiem (see Prom 72), Vaughan Williams’s cantata Dona nobis pacem is a heartbreakingly beautiful exploration of the violence of war, its expansive lyricism a natural foil for the compressed drama of Lili Boulanger’s choral miniature Pour les funérailles d’un soldat.

Elgar’s much-loved Cello Concerto, composed in the wake of the conflict, completes this emotive concert, with French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras as soloist.

Broadcast on BBC Four on Sunday 2 September