Prom 34 – Barber, Britten & Copland

Part of the BBC Proms.

In Bernstein’s centenary year, Juanjo Mena and the BBC Philharmonic celebrate with a transatlantic Prom, uniting music by British and American composers connected not just by generation but in many cases by personal friendship. Commissioned and premiered by Bernstein, Copland’s Connotations is a portrait of ‘the tensions, aspirations and drama inherent in the world today’. Its knotty confrontations find contrast in the sensuous beauty of Britten’s orchestral song-cycle Les illuminations, while the sea provides inspiration both for Walton’s bustling, bonhomous Portsmouth Point overture and Britten’s boldly dramatic Four Sea Interludes. Two extracts from Samuel Barber’s opera Antony and Cleopatra complete the programme.