Heaven, Earth and the human heart

Deserted by her lover, the beautiful Ariadne pours out her longing and loss. The virgin Mary sings to both heaven and earth in a moment of pure ecstasy. And Robert Schumann, smitten with his young wife Clara, weaves messages of pure love into a symphony inspired by Beethoven. Some say it’s his very greatest.

But what’s certain is that, as a composer himself, Ryan Wigglesworth brings a creator’s insight to everything he conducts - whether it’s Schumann’s ardent symphony, a reinvention of a classical myth from renaissance Venice, or Wigglesworth’s own gorgeous, typically uninhibited setting of the Magnificat, sung (for the first time in London) by the singer who inspired it, soprano Sophie Bevan, who will work wonders, along with the BBC Symphony Chorus.