Vasily Petrenko conducts Elgar’s Sea Pictures | Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Tonight’s concert is one of epic scale. Opening the performance is Elgar’s Sea Pictures. Mezzo-soprano Kathryn Rudge joins the Orchestra for a performance of these evocative songs which depict the boundless scale and power of the sea.

Written only five years after Elgar composed Sea Pictures, the orchestration of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony is vast, featuring massed brass, percussion and strings. This masterpiece end in tragedy – indeed, perhaps one of the most anguished endings of the entire repertoire; nevertheless, audiences have plenty of opportunity to experience the work’s beauty and joy in a dramatic musical journey before the Symphony reaches its fateful conclusion.

‘With her sensitivity to the text, freshness of timbre and secure vocal technique, [Rudge] once again proves herself a strongly intuitive interpreter of this repertoire.’ Gramophone on Kathryn Rudge and Vasily Petrenko performing Elgar's Sea Pictures