BBC Symphony Orchestra - Schuller, Debussy, Benjamin, Stravinsky.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Singers conducted by Oliver Knussen. Music by Debussy, Stravinsky and George Benjamin - a new work Dream of the Song with countertenor Iestyn Davies. Recorded at the Barbican.
Presented by Martin Handley

Schuller: Dreamscape (UK premiere)
Debussy: Nocturnes

Interval: Manuel de Falla's Homenaje pour le Tombeau de Claude Debussy and Olivier Messiaen performs his own work Le Banquet Celeste

George Benjamin: Dream of the Song (BBC Co-commission, UK Premiere)
Stravinsky: Symphony in Three Movements

Iestyn Davies (countertenor)
BBC Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Oliver Knussen (conductor)

Night music and mysterious voices infuse both Debussy's evocative Nocturnes and George Benjamin's new work for star countertenor Iestyn Davies, Dream of the Song. Gunter Schuller's Dreamscape, apparently dictated to the composer in a dream, opens the concert. Schuller's father was a violinist in the New York Philharmonic at the time Stravinsky wrote his turbulent, chromatic war-time masterpiece for that orchestra: the Symphony in Three Movements. Expect dynamism and detail from Schuller's disciple, conductor Oliver Knussen.