The ACO present a powerfully Romantic programme. The Siegfried Idyll is Wagner at his most intimate, a touching piece written as a birthday present for his wife, tender, lilting and astonishingly beautiful.

Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, by contrast, is a cycle of songs both celebrating the pleasures of life and staring with unflinching honesty at the inevitability of death – a spiritual sung symphony on the joys of drinking, the beauty of nature, and the soul’s release. Arnold Schoenberg created a chamber version of Das Lied in 1920 that magnifies the piece’s emotional resonance. For it, the ACO is joined by two exceptional singers: respected British mezzo soprano Alice Coote, and the renowned Australian heldentenor Stuart Skelton.

This concert will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Friday 12 Aug.

If there's a better chamber orchestra in the world today, I haven't heard it.

The Guardian

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