| Sir Simon Rattle | Musikalische Leitung |
| Simon Johnson | Orgel |
| Musicians from the Guildhall School | Various instruments |
| Musicians from Music Academy | Various instruments |
| London Symphony Orchestra |
Sir Simon Rattle directs a spectacular, site-specific performance of Berlioz’s colossal Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale in one of the few places that can do it justice: St Paul’s Cathedral.
‘Come, you chosen heroes! Change your victors’ laurels for the garlands of immortality!’ Hector Berlioz was never one for understatement, but even by his standards, the Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale was something unprecedented: a towering monument in sound, written to be performed in an enormous public space and scored for a small army of marching musicians.
It will be a musical event on a scale that Berlioz would have recognised, starting with an atmospheric performance with over 80 musicians on the steps of the Cathedral and, once inside, using the vast, soaring interior of St Paul’s and its surroundings.
Three of Messiaen’s most personal masterpieces provide a dazzling complement to Berlioz’s one-off sonic spectacular – including solos by Simon Johnson, a former Organist and Assistant Director of Music at St Paul’s Cathedral, and the powerful fanfare for brass, winds and percussion, Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.