Side-by-Side

The evening

Youth and experience share their musical passion as two generations of the Hallé family team up.

James MacMillan directs his radiant Larghetto for Orchestra, a version for instruments of one of his unaccompanied choral works. Swelling optimistically from recognition and repentance to the hope of forgiveness, this meditative piece takes the confessional Psalm 51 as its inspiration.

It is paired with Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, which rises from misty stillness to blazing triumph. The vast Nordic horizons unfold in sweeping arcs of sound: from the glowing horn calls to the iconic, wing-beat finale, this is nature transformed into music – elemental, exultant and utterly exhilarating.