Prom 43 – Daniel Barenboim & West-Eastern Divan Orchestra

Part of the BBC Proms.

Daniel Barenboim and his pioneering West-Eastern Divan Orchestra return to the Proms for a concert marrying passion and politics. One of the most richly Romantic works in the repertoire – Tchaikovsky’s heart-rending Violin Concerto, performed here by Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili – is paired with Scriabin’s ecstatic, orgiastic The Poem of Ecstasy, an attempt to bridge the divide between spirituality and sexuality in music. At the centre of the concert is David Robert Coleman’s Looking for Palestine for soprano and orchestra, a work commissioned by the ensemble, and one that speaks to its uniquely political identity.