London Symphony Orchestra/Sir Simon Rattle

Have you ever wondered, ‘What if Bach were Brazilian?’ Soprano Camilla Tilling performs one possible answer – Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No 5, melding Baroque harmony with Brazilian folk. That’s followed by Ligeti’s angular, modernist and stunningly beautiful Violin Concerto. The piece embodies the composer’s later style, fusing his most searingly avant-garde writing with a genuine lyricism and a child-like sense of variety, adventure and possibility.  

The Fourth Symphony displays Mahler in an unusually subtle and restrained guise (at least by his standards). Drawing inspiration from his favourite collection of German folk poems Des Knaben Wunderhorn, the work ends with Camilla Tilling’s rendition of a wondrous, child-like vision of what heaven might be like, where 'wine doesn't cost a penny and the angels bake the bread’.