Synopsis

Presented by Martin Handley.

Mark Elder conducts the Halle Orchestra in a magnificent, long-lost early work by Vaughan Williams, followed by one of the best-known piano concertos by Mozart, featuring Lars Vogt. Elder's credentials as a great interpreter of the works of Richard Strauss are in evidence as he leads the orchestra in the composer's tone poem based on Nietzsche's philosophical novel Also sprach Zarathustra, which begins with perhaps the most famous sunrise in music. The concert ends with by John Adams's scarily precipitous musical journey Short Ride in a Fast Machine.

Lars Vogt (piano)
Halle Orchestra
Mark Elder (conductor)

Vaughan Williams: Heroic Elegy and Triumphal Epilogue
Mozart: Piano Concerto No 24, K491
Strauss: Also sprach Zarathustra
John Adams: Short Ride in a Fast Machine

Followed by a performance given by the Northern Sinfonia to mark the start of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival 2009 at the Sage, Gateshead.

Schubert: Overture in the Italian Style, D591
Northern Sinfonia
Heinrich Schiff (conductor)

John Casken: Cello Concerto
Northern Sinfonia
Heinrich Schiff (cello/director).