Famous and much-loved compositions by Felix Mendelssohn start and finish this two-hour City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra concert (including an interval). Kickstarting proceedings is the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by the composer 199 years ago at the tender age of 17... The afternoon of musicmaking is brought to a sunny conclusion with a performance of his ‘Italian’ symphony, a work which has been described as ‘reminiscent of beautiful blue skies’. Alongside the double dose of Mendelssohn, the concert also features, as its title makes clear, music by Richard Wagner - to be more specific, his sumptuous Wesendonck Lieder. A set of five songs for piano and female voice (in this case, Jamie Barton’s), the work was inspired by the poetry of Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of Wagner’s patron, with whom the composer somewhat unwisely fell in love. 

The concert programme is completed by Roxanna Panufnik’s Alma’s Songs Without Words. Pierre Bleuse (pictured) conducts.