BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Studio Concerts Berlioz, Ravel & Farrenc

Conductor Duncan Ward explores the music of Berlioz, Ravel and Farrenc for this afternoon’s live BBC Radio 3 broadcast.

Orchestrated in Berlioz's brightest colours, his Roman Carnival Overture was originally used in his Benvenuto Cellini opera but now stands alone as an independent concert piece. Nine minutes of dashing orchestral music, the piece also includes a prominent and famous solo for the English horn.

Ravel’s fascination with the heroine and narrator of The Arabian Nights, inspired today’s heady song-cycle, Shéhérazade, and delivers an exotic musical fantasy of distant lands and forbidden love.

Louise Farrenc may not be a household name yet, but in her own lifetime she enjoyed a career of international standing and BBC Radio 3’s Tom Service considers today’s piece – her stormy Third Symphony – to be a “shamefully neglected work”.