Thomas Adès conducts

An evening of music framed by Elgar, the composer who has captured the essence of England in music more resonantly than any other. Elgar’s Sospiri is a love-sick Adagio while his Symphony No. 1 appears to carry the hopes of a troubled nation in music of deep longing and optimism. As the composer who has inherited Elgar’s mantle in England, Thomas Adès also conducts his own Dawn – an intense meditation on cycles of time, light and renewal and a masterpiece in miniature. In this concert, it forms the missing link before Kurtág’s Movement for Viola and Orchestra – a grippingly physical opening to a full concerto, the rest of which was scrapped.