Performer: Sir Mark Elder

Sir Mark Elder celebrates 50 years at Covent Garden by returning to his first opera there in 1976 – Verdi's Rigoletto – in a revival of Oliver Mears' excellent 2021 production.

Elder's reading of A Sea Symphony has the maturity and surefooted-ness of a conductor who has fully absorbed the work and long since recognised it as a masterpiece.

Sir Mark Elder conducts the world premiere of Huw Watkins' Concerto for Orchestra and Strauss' gargantuan Alpine Symphony.

As Sir Mark Elder prepares to conduct La Damnation de Faust, he reflects on the nature of the work and what it is that makes Berlioz sound like Berlioz.