CBSO, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony

In 2020, BBC Radio 3 is bringing together musical greats, from the past and the present, in one extraordinary Proms season. Radio 3 is broadcasting the best of four decades of unmissable Proms concerts.

Petroc Trelawny presents a highlight from the 2017 season.

Beethoven: Overture ‘Leonore’ No. 3
Stravinsky: Violin Concerto in D major
Gerald Barry: Canada (BBC commission: world premiere)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor

Allan Clayton (tenor)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla (conductor)

(From BBC Proms 2017, 21 August)

The CBSO and Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla explore the theme of political and artistic freedom. Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, written for his rescue opera Fidelio, celebrates the triumph of truth over tyranny in music of radiant beauty, while his Fifth Symphony rewrites the rules for the classical symphony.

In his new work, maverick composer Gerald Barry sets a text from Fidelio’s Prisoners’ Chorus – including the lines ‘Speak softly! We are watched with eyes and ears’, suggesting a resonance with today’s concerns over public surveillance. And Leila Josefowicz amps up the drama in the fierce brilliance of Stravinsky’s neoclassical concerto.