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Elgar’s First Symphony

Live at the Âé¶¹Éç Proms: the Âé¶¹Éç Scottish Symphony Orchestra performs Elgar, Weir and Dean with chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, soprano Claire Booth and the Âé¶¹Éç Singers.

Live at the Âé¶¹Éç Proms: the Âé¶¹Éç Scottish Symphony Orchestra performs music by Elgar, Judith Weir and Brett Dean with chief conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, soprano Claire Booth and the Âé¶¹Éç Singers.

Presented by Tom Service, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Judith Weir: Moon and Star
Brett Dean: The World’s Wife (Âé¶¹Éç co-commission: world premiere)

c.8.15pm
Interval: Brett Dean talks to Tom Service about his Âé¶¹Éç co-commision and world premiere of The World's Wife. Plus, David Owen Norris talks about Elgar's relationship with his wife, Alice, who was also his his muse, manager and critic.

c.8.35pm
Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 1 in A flat major

Claire Booth, soprano
Âé¶¹Éç Singers
Âé¶¹Éç Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Ryan Wigglesworth, conductor

‘Human life … and a massive hope in the future’: this – no less – is Elgar’s sweeping subject for his First Symphony – a work once nicknamed ‘Brahms’s Fifth’ for its close relationship with the German tradition. Exuberant and filled with orchestral colour, an ‘immediate and phenomenal success’ at its premiere, it’s the work of a composer steeped in musical history but looking to the future. Two contemporary works open this concert by Ryan Wigglesworth and the Âé¶¹Éç Scottish Symphony Orchestra: the world premiere of The World’s Wife by Brett Dean – setting words by Carol Ann Duffy – and Judith Weir’s Moon and Star – capturing the vastness and strangeness of space through the eyes of New England poet Emily Dickinson.

Release date:

2 hours, 59 minutes

On radio

Wed 29 Jul 2026 19:00

Broadcast

  • Wed 29 Jul 2026 19:00