Proms 2015 Prom 54: Britten, Raymond Yiu, Nielsen & Janáček

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. Raymond Yiu's BBC commission is a symphony which features the amazing countertenor voice of Andrew Watts, singing texts by Walt Whitman, Constantine Cavafy,Thom Gunn and John Donne on memories of love and loss.