Prom 27: Holloway / Strauss / Brahms

Donald Runnicles and his orchestra open their second Prom this season with a major world premiere, the latest in Robin Holloway’s unique series of allusive and extravagantly inventive showpieces for orchestra. In his willingness to make a big Romantic splash, Holloway is sometimes likened to Richard Strauss, although that composer is at his most reflective in the Four Last Songs. Brahms’s Second Symphony has its melancholic, contemplative aspect but ends on a note of unalloyed triumph.