Berlioz: Overture, Beatrice and Benedict
Britten: Nocturne
Schumann: Symphony No 4 (original version)

Robin Ticciati, conductor; John Mark Ainsley, tenor

Shakespeare, Keats, Coleridge and Wilfred Owen were among Britten’s inspirations in Nocturne, his dramatic evocation of night. Here are seduction, repose, threat and menace in a phenomenal tour-de-force both for tenor soloist and the players who duet or spar with him in fleeting solos. Ticciati frames Britten with two composers he loves and who were themselves regular correspondents. Schumann’s symphony blazes like day after Britten’s night: this is undiluted Romanticism at its most exhilarating – Schumann himself once used the word ‘Phantasie’ to describe it.

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