Vaughan Williams’s ‘Fantasia’ and Symphony No. 9

Live at the BBC Proms: Andrew Manze conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in a celebration of English music, featuring works by Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten & Carmel Smickersgill.

Presented by Ian Skelly, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
Benjamin Britten: Violin Concerto

c.7.50pm Interval:
Ian Skelly talks to Kate Kennedy about the life, values and complexities of Ralph Vaughan Williams, exploring the deeply human figure behind one of Britain's most celebrated composers.

c.8.10pm
Carmel Smickersgill: A Brick Thrown with Love - BBC co-commission: world premiere
Ralph Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 9 in E minor

Andrew Manze conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in a celebration of English music, including a commission from Carmel Smickersgill exploring resilience in the face of tragedy. The starkly beautiful landscape of Thomas Hardy’s Wessex haunts the score of Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No. 9 – pastoral yearning tinged with darker wartime memories and fears, a contrast to the radiant spiritual affirmation of the composer’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, with its shimmering clouds of strings. ‘Eloquent’ Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma makes her Proms debut in Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto, another work steeped in thoughts of war and hopes of peace.