An intriguing programme of orchestral works: Ryan Bancroft conducts the Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra, with soloist Sarah Connolly.

The world of fairy tales can be a topsy-turvy place, where the most unlikely figures can become central characters. The protagonist of Gubaidulina’s Fairytale Poem is a piece of chalk with big dreams, and a remarkable zest for life. Its touching biography is treated with great tenderness and characteristic imagination by the late Russian composer; her command of the orchestra brings a sense of grandeur and peril to the emotional life of this tiny hero.

The Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck was clearly in vogue among composers in the early 1900s. A few years after Debussy based an opera on Pelléas et Mélisande, Zemlinsky set six poems by Maeterlinck, imbued with the writer’s elusive, allusive imagery. Though male-authored, the perspective is distinctly female with accounts of love and yearning, sometimes through a mythical filter. Zemlinsky’s musical response is suitably sumptuous – and perfect for the velvety tones of Sarah Connolly’s mezzo-soprano voice.

In 1944 Prokofiev returned to the symphony after a gap of some 16 years – and produced one of his most powerful and stirring works. Across four epic movements, the Symphony No.5 was concerned with, as the composer put it, “the greatness of the human soul”.

Royal Academy of Music Symphony Orchestra
Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano
Ryan Bancroft conductor