91Èȱ¬

Another chance to hear the Proms Festival Orchestra conducted by Mark Wigglesworth perform Shostakovish and Mahler's Fifth Symphony at the 2021 91Èȱ¬ Proms.

From the Royal Albert Hall, London
Presented by Ian Skelly

Shostakovich: Festive Overture, Op 96
Mahler: Symphony No 5 in C sharp minor

Proms Festival Orchestra
Mark Wigglesworth, conductor

After a year in which venues fell quiet and orchestras downsized, tonight’s Prom is a celebration of all an orchestra can do. A specially assembled Proms Festival Orchestra – made up of leading freelance musicians and conducted by Mark Wigglesworth – performs two colourful showpieces of the repertoire. Shostakovich’s Festive Overture bubbles over with a fresh exuberance that reflects the fact that its composer wrote it in two days flat.

Mahler’s Fifth Symphony spans an expressive chasm from the Funeral March of the first movement to a precariously unhinged Scherzo via the work’s lingering, lyrical soul: the heartrendingly beautiful Adagietto, written as a musical love letter to his wife Alma.

There will be no interval.