Synopsis
Ravel’s La valse turns the Viennese waltz into a darkly tinged rhapsody, while his Valses nobles et sentimentales reflects the iconic dance in softer tones. Duruflé’s Requiem is the musical cousin of Fauré’s more familiar Requiem and anchors its 20th-century harmonies in the same arching plainchant melodies of the past. Flute virtuoso Emmanuel Pahud joins the orchestra for the world premiere of Simon Holt’s flute concerto Morpheus Wakes – written for Pahud himself, who represents the god of dreaming ‘as if slowly waking from adeep, troubled sleep’.