Melody is the key word in this concert, which brings together four composers with a supreme talent for a lyrical tune.

Edward Elgar, undisputed master of the rousing anthem, doesn’t disappoint in his Introduction and Allegro, written 120 years ago for the strings of the London Symphony Orchestra. This sunny opener features one of his greatest melodies, at once noble and melancholy, optimistic and wistful.

The thread is picked up by another Englishman: in his Viola Concerto, William Walton fuses a backwards-looking nostalgia with crisp, incisive movement, all the while drawing liberally from the bluesy cadence of jazz-age New York. Mexican-born Dana Zemtsov is the soloist in this virtuosic joy ride.

Finnish composer-conductor Outi Tarkiainen also blends jazz into her vivid, cinematic sound-world. The Ring of Fire and Love – part of a series of works exploring womanhood – traces the ‘earth-shattering, creative, cataclysmic’ moment of childbirth.

And to close, excerpts from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet. Once pronounced ‘undanceable’, the ballet has become the composer’s most famous work – a seemingly inexhaustible supply of earworms, not least the famous ‘Dance of the Knights’. Prokofiev hoped it would have ‘immediate appeal yet sound like nothing written before’. That rings true, even today.

Programme

Elgar Introduction and Allegro for Strings
Walton Viola Concerto
Outi Tarkainen The Ring of Fire and Love
Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet Suites Nos. 1 & 2 (selections)