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Tom Service introduces an exciting all-string programme given by the Britten Sinfonia, recorded last month at the Barbican Hall.

Knotty and uncompromising, Beethoven鈥檚 Grosse Fuge 鈥� Great Fugue 鈥� is the original finale of his String Quartet in B flat, Opus 130. The music utterly confounded the audience at its 1826 premiere and it took decades before it was generally accepted as a work of transcendent genius rather than the eccentric ravings of a lunatic, clapped-out composer. So the Grosse Fuge had surely gained the ultimate imprimatur by the time Igor Stravinsky declared it 鈥榓 miracle鈥� the most absolutely contemporary piece of music I know, and contemporary forever鈥︹�� The Britten Sinfonia play it in a reworking for string orchestra made in 1906 by the conductor Felix Weingartner.

Designed to please, Bartok鈥檚 affable Divertimento features some of his most approachable music. But the darker middle movement casts an ominous and disquieting shadow, reflecting Bart贸k's anguish at the relentless march of Nazism across Europe and his prediction that 鈥榓 new global catastrophe is imminent.鈥�

Cellist Guy Johnston is the soloist in one of the most memorable and enduring pieces of the last 35 years. John Tavener's The Protecting Veil is an often rapt meditation inspired by the Virgin Mary's miraculous appearance over a church in Constantinople in the early 10th century to safeguard the faithful against attack.

Beethoven: Grosse Fuge Op.133
Bart贸k: Divertimento for Strings
John Tavener: The Protecting Veil

Britten Sinfonia
Thomas Gould (violin/director)