Radio 3 in Concert: BBC NOW perform Brahms and Stravinsky

The BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales are joined by their Principal Conductor, Ryan Bancroft, to perform two works by Brahms, and Stravinsky's choral masterpiece, his Symphony of Psalms. The Orchestra begin the programme with Brahms's Second Serenade, a work which he wrote while mustering the courage to compose his First Symphony. Following the interval, two masterworks of the choral repertoire: Brahms's Song of Destiny, and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. For his cantata, his 'Schicksalslied', Brahms was inspired by a poem in Friedrich Hölderlin's Hyperion, which highlights the cruel sufferings of humans by contrasting it with the blissful immortality of the eponymous titan. In contrast, Stravinsky's choral symphony is an idiosyncratic, yet deeply moving, offering to the divine in which he sets biblical psalms that brim with exaltation, anger, judgement, and even curses, in a work that never ceases to sound fresh. Presented by Verity Sharp in BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, on June 20. Brahms: Serenade No 2 in A, Op 16; Song of Destiny, Op 54. Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms. BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, conductor Ryan Bancroft