Elgar’s Cello Concerto

Composed during the blitz and premiered at the 1943 Proms, Vaughan Williams’ serene Fifth Symphony seems like a retreat from the real world to an imagined paradise. Elgar’s equally lyrical Cello Concerto, composed in 1919, also feels like a reaction against the horrors of wartime. Vernon Handley, such a tireless champion of English music, precedes these two masterpieces with a musical fairytale by Granville Bantock, who did so much for Birmingham’s musical life and was instrumental in the founding of the CBSO in 1920.

1.15pm Pre-concert talk – Vaughan Williams’ Fifth Baz Chapman – Programme Director of Sing Up – shares his enthusiasm for Vaughan Williams’ great wartime symphony.

£9.50, £13.50, £17.50, £21.50, £24, £28, £3

Booking opens on Monday 9 June