BBC Philharmonic - Four Last Songs

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Nicholas Carter conductor
Sarah Wegener soprano

Wagner Prelude and Liebestod* from Tristan und Isolde
Edmund Finnis The Landscape Wakes (UK premiere)
Bax Tintagel
Strauss Four Last Songs*

Nicholas Carter, one of the leading opera conductors of his generation, makes his Bridgewater Hall debut.

Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde explores love and death through unresolved dissonance and ecstatic bliss, showcasing some of his most sumptuous music. Soprano Sarah Wegener joins the orchestra for Strauss’s Four Last Songs, the composer’s final, heartbreakingly wistful reflection on life, written in 1948 as he anticipated the end. For pure concentrated personal expression, there’s little like it.

Alongside, Tintagel by Arnold Bax, a rhapsodic tone poem inspired by Cornish myths and the mystery of Tintagel Castle. But before that – hear the latest work from Edmund Finnis, a fast-rising British composer of delicate melodies and glistening, sinewy textures.

*Soprano Sarah Wegener will be performing in Strauss’s Four Last Songs and in Wagner’s Liebestod.

The Landscape Wakes is a BBC Philharmonic Orchestra commission, in partnership with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra.