| Main Performers | Christopher Purves - vocal |
| Choirs | London Voices,
Crouch End Festival Chorus |
| Set List | 'The Immortal', M Simpson, (London Premiere),
INTERVAL
'Symphony No.6 in B Minor - Pathetique', Tchaikovsky |
| Performance Notes | Life and death collide in a concert that explores what lies beyond the limits of human existence. In his passionate Sixth Symphony, which the composer described as the best thing I ever composed or shall compose, Tchaikovsky reimagined what the symphony could be, daring to face death with uncertainty.
The BBC Philharmonics Composer in Association and a former BBC Young Musician winner and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, Mark Simpson, also looks to the afterlife in his critically acclaimed oratorio The Immortal. Inspired by Victorian seances, he conjures up eerie visions of a world beyond.
"It's a mystery why no one has staged a surround-sound Victorian seance in the Royal Albert Hall before. Mark Simpson's 'The Immortal', inspired by the life of Frederic Myers, was first performed at the Manchester International Festival in 2015, but to hear its shrieks and mutterings bounce around this vast, ceremonial space felt like a homecoming - albeit an eerie one."
(The Times, 31 July 2017) |
| Related Archival Material | Proms Guide (RAHE/1/2017/47a),
Programme (RAHE/1/2017/63),
Mini Guide (RAHE/6/2017/36),
Posters (RAHE/2/2017/27-28) |