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Ryan Wigglesworth’s feast of English music opens with Britten’s suite of ‘best bits’ from his 1953 Coronation opera Gloriana, all about the fraught relationship between Elizabeth I and the Earl of Essex. Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s new climate change-themed Cello Concerto – premiered last year in Glasgow by tonight’s forces – takes inspiration from three disparate aspects of the natural world. Elgar’s Symphony No. 2 is considered by many to be the best ever written in England. ‘I have put my soul into it,’ said the composer of this captivating journey, whose thrusting outward energy conceals deep inner poignancy.

Broadcast live on Â鶹Éç Radio 3

Image: Ryan Wigglesworth © Benjamin Ealovega