This special BBC Proms concert marked both 100 years since Armistice and 50 years since the London Sinfonietta was founded to perform the best in contemporary music.
Conducted by George Benjamin, the programme centred on four brand new First World War-inspired compositions by a quartet of leading European composers: Luca Francesconi, Georg Friedrich Haas, Hannah Kendall and Isabel Mundry.
The evening also featured two pieces written either side of the war, Ives’ searching The Unanswered Question and Stravinsky’s elegant Symphonies of Wind Instruments, along with a monumental work by one of the most important figures in 20th-century music: Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, a homage to those who lost their lives in the two World Wars.
The four world-premieres are co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW and London Sinfonietta, supported by the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany, London. First presented as part of BBC Proms 2018.
