Elgar’s Enigma Variations and Grace Williams’s Symphony No. 2

Elizabeth Alker showcases the best performances by BBC orchestras, choirs, ensembles and other great performing groups from Europe and around the globe.

We round off our week of programmes featuring the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with a performance of Elgar’s beloved ‘Enigma’ Variations, recorded last year in Newport. There’s also more music by the 20th-century Welsh composer Grace Williams, whose work the orchestra has and continues to champion – today, we hear the second of her two symphonies.

And we pay a further visit to Queen’s University, Belfast, home of the annual Belfast Music Society International Festival of Chamber Music, where Trio Gaspard performed music by Felix Mendelssohn and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

Plus a chance to hear a brand new piece by composer and sitar virtuoso Jasdeep Singh Degun, commissioned by the BBC Concert Orchestra and recorded by them at this year's PRS New Music Biennial in Bradford.

1pm
Edward Elgar
Enigma Variations, Op. 36
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Nil Venditti (conductor)

Felix Mendelssohn
Piano Trio No. 2 in C minor, Op. 66
Trio Gaspard

Jean Sibelius
Tapiola
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Ryan Bancorft (conductor)

Grace Williams
Symphony No. 2
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Martyn Brabbins (conductor)

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Trio Sonata in D major, Wq. 89 No. 6
Trio Gaspard

Jasdeep Singh Degun
Into the Night
Jasdeep Singh Degun (sitar)
Kirpal Panesar (esraj)
Kaviraj Singh (santoor)
Gurdain Rayatt (tabla)
Upneet Singh (tabla)
BBC Concert Orchestra
Ellie Slorach (conductor)

To listen to this programme (using most smart speakers) just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Classical Live".