Live at the BBC Proms: the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by David Bates, play Mozart’s Requiem and works by Rameau and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges.

Live from the Royal Albert Hall, London

Presented by Petroc Trelawny

Rameau: Hippolyte et Aricie – Bruit de tonnerre and Ritornello
Dardanus – Tambourins I & II
Castor et Pollux – ‘Tristes apprêts’

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Symphony No. 2 in D major

Rameau: Dardanus – ‘Lieux funestes’
Platée – Orage
Les Indes galantes - Suites d’orchestre: Entrée les Sauvages: III. Chaconne (à deux clavecins)

8.10: Interval: Petroc Trelawny and guests talk about the music in tonight's programme, and look at the work of the National Youth Chamber Choir.

Mozart: Requiem (compl. Sussmayr)

Samantha Clarke, soprano
Claudia Huckle, contralto
Nick Pritchard, tenor
William Thomas, bass
National Youth Chamber Choir
Britten Sinfonia
David Bates, conductor

‘Didn’t I tell you that I composed the Requiem for myself?’ Mozart may (or may not) have spoken those words on his death bed, but his choral masterpiece, the Requiem, commissioned by a mysterious cloaked figure, certainly offers a transfiguring experience. Written in the last month of Mozart’s life, it contrasts the fear of death with radiant hope and balances dark drama with sublime simplicity. It’s sung tonight by a cast of rising-star soloists, joined by some of the UK’s most talented young voices, the National Youth Chamber Choir. As a prelude, the concert’s first half includes a short symphony by Mozart’s contemporary Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges – the first composer of African ancestry to make waves in Europe – and a selection of dances arias and storm-evocations drawn from operas by Jean-Philippe Rameau, the leading music-dramatist of this day.