Waves play and waterfalls plunge, the still surface of a lake reflects the midday sun and an ocean duets with the wind in a concert with saltwater on its breath. Edward Gardner conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in a programme of 20th-century orchestral sound-pictures. The mercurial moods of Debussy’s La mer and rolling waters of Sibelius’s The Oceanides find answer in the gentle rolling harbour of Ravel’s song-cycle Shéhérazade, performed – in a Proms debut – by mezzo- soprano Aigul Akhmetshina. Tippett’s last major work takes us inland to discover a glowing ‘lake full of song’.
Aigul Akhmetshina © Beata Nykiel