Afterlife: Visions of the Beyond

Available for 80 days

Live at the BBC Proms: The BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales & Ryan Bancroft, with Mari Eriksmoen, Paula Murrihy, James Way and Szymon Mechliński, perform Szymanowski. Presented by Alexandra Humphreys, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London Lili Boulanger: Vieille prière bouddhique Szymanowski: Stabat mater c.8.10pm Interval: Alexandra's guest is Peter Stanford - the author of books including Heaven: A Traveller’s Guide to the Undiscovered Country; The Devil: A Biography; Angels: A History and earlier this summer he published Gaudí: God's Architect about the Spanish designer of the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona who died a hundred years ago in June 1926 c.8.20pm Messiaen: L’Ascension – four symphonic meditations Strauss: Death and Transfiguration Mari Eriksmoen (soprano) Paula Murrihy (mezzo-soprano) James Way (tenor) Szymon Mechliński (baritone) BBC National Orchestra of Wales BBC National Chorus of Wales London Philharmonic Choir Ryan Bancroft (conductor) Music pierces the veil between heaven and earth in a spiritually charged concert that opens in contemplation and ends in the blaze of ascension and transfiguration. Voices are raised in prayer in Lili Boulanger’s haunting Vieille prière bouddhique, intensified in the rapt, intimate intercessions of Szymanowski’s Stabat mater. Unearthly beauty is revealed in Messiaen’s L’Ascension, before a dying man is raised to heaven in Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration.