Prom 63: BBC Symphony Orchestra September 2, 2009

With its 98 players dispersed among the audience, Xenakis's Nomos gamma should make a stunning Proms piece, not least as the final drumrolls from its eight percussionists ricochet around the Arena. Both Aïs – a searing setting of ancient Greek texts by Homer and Sappho, with a wildly wide-ranging vocal line – and Rachmaninov's Stygian tonepoem, composed a century ago, confront the transience of life and the finality of death, while Shostakovich's 1945 Ninth seems almost to laugh off the horrors of war. A former New Generation Artist, percussionist Colin Currie also appears in our NGA 10th-Anniversary Weekend (PCM 7) and in Prom 33.

Xenakis Nomos gamma (15 mins)
Rachmaninov The Isle of the Dead (20 mins)
interval
Xenakis Aïs (18 mins)
Shostakovich Symphony No.9 in E flat major (25 mins)

Leigh Melrose baritone
Colin Currie percussion
BBC Symphony Orchestra
David Robertson conductor

Official Website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/2009/whatson/0209.shtml#prom63