Featured artist Leila Josefowicz plays Helen Grime’s Violin Concerto, and the sensational Anu Komsi sings Strauss’ Four Last Songs, “drenched in a sense of what was and never will be again”.

This first BBC Symphony Orchestra concert features two masterpieces by Richard Strauss in which darkness is transformed into light. Death and Transfiguration depicts the death of an artist and his spirit’s journey through memories of childhood innocence, the struggles of life, and the achievement of his life goals as he ascends to heaven.

The Four Last Songs, with their evocation of nature and the changing seasons, are described by Herbert Glass as “songs of farewell – to life, to art, to a vanished world. There is nothing like them in music for the sheer intensity of their concentrated, gentle heartache. They are drenched in a sense of what was and never will be again”.

Helen Grime’s Violin Concerto also holds intense emotional contrasts. She writes that “violent, virtuosic music covering the whole range of the violin is contrasted with more delicate and reflective filigree material that features oscillating natural harmonic passages and searching melodies”. It is played by featured artist Leila Josefowicz, a passionate advocate of new music and a wonderful match for the piece’s wide emotional and technical palette. Helen says of Leila: “She's an incredible artist, with such a strong vision and interpretation of the piece - she really owns it. Every time she plays it she has something new to say and to bring to it, so it's a very exciting experience every time I hear it”.

It sits alongside fellow featured artist Daniel Kidane’s Awake, another special work of which he says “my message was: Be awake, focus on the positives, be open-minded. Really listen. I wanted to create a piece that was hopeful”. Here it is played by the orchestra and conductor for whom it was composed.

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Anu Komsi soprano
Leila Josefowicz violin
Sakari Oramo conductor