Elgar, Yiu and Elkington

A London premiere, a lost treasure and two lovely Elgar scores – a typically imaginative BBC SO programme that sees Andrew Davis back on the podium.

Elgar opens the concert with music for a children’s fantasy play, full of longing and nostalgia, closes it with a requiem, in all but name, to the dead of the First World War. Raymond Yiu, whose Symphony made such an impression at the 2015 Proms, gives us a chance to hear a new work that sets words by Anthony Burgess. And there’s a rarity by a composer who is all but forgotten; Lilian Elkington’s 1921 orchestral piece portrays the return of the body of the Unknown Warrior on the HMS Verdun and the ship’s emergence from the mists – a work of atmospheric power and beauty.