Prom 24: Elgar / Grainger / Strauss

Tasmin Little and Sir Andrew Davis tackle a favourite concerto which the violinist has only recently felt ready to commit to disc. It is preceded by one of Elgar’s most radical part-songs, notated in two keys simultaneously in a manner which might be said to parallel the incorrigible experiments of Percy Grainger. To mark the 50th anniversary of that composer’s death, his In a Nutshell suite receives a first outing at the Proms, reaching its popular march finale by way of some unpredictable and darkly complex invention. Once considered dangerously radical itself, Strauss’s perky symphonic poem documents the adventures of a purely mythical rascal.