Synopsis
The World Orchestra for Peace returns with its conductor Valery Gergiev for its fourth Proms appearance and its only UK appearance this year. This classical supergroup celebrates Strauss’s 150th anniversary with the colourful, fairy-tale soundscapes of his operatic masterpiece Die Frau ohne Schatten. Fantasy gives way to reality in the prescient tragedy of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, the glorious agony of its final movement foreshadowing the composer’s own personal heartbreaks. Roxanna Panufnik’s Three Paths to Peace, commissioned by tonight’s orchestra, meshes Christian, Jewish and Islamic musical traditions to tell the story of Abraham and Isaac.