Live stream: Salonen conducts Britten and Ravel | Philharmonia Orchestra

The 2020/21 season is Esa-Pekka Salonen’s last as Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Philharmonia, a position he has held since 2008. For his first concert in this landmark season he has invited outstanding American soprano Julia Bullock to make her Philharmonia and Royal Festival Hall debut.

At the heart of the programme is Britten’s Les Illuminations, a setting of nine poems by Rimbaud. Britten’s expressive writing for voice and strings, and Rimbaud’s vivid and fantastical texts, lure us into an unearthly, dreamlike world.

Salonen and Bullock’s performance of this piece with the San Francisco Symphony was acclaimed as “something of a revelation… a performance of magnificent expansiveness” (San Francisco Chronicle).

To frame the Britten, Salonen has chosen two equally evocative pieces by Ravel. His Pavane imagines a princess of the Spanish Golden Age in a slow, graceful dance. And each exquisitely delicate movement of the 1912 ballet he created from his Mother Goose Suite paints a vivid fairytale scene.

Gentle flutes introduce Sleeping Beauty, sprightly percussion and woodwinds tell the story of the Empress of the Pagodas. Ravel’s unmatched talent for orchestration gives every member of the Philharmonia a chance to shine.