Sir Antonio Pappano conducts Elgar and Holst — With Vilde Frang

Sir Antonio Pappano's first official season as Chief Conductor of the world-renowned London Symphony Orchestra begins with a concert of interplanetary proportions, combining two of Britain's greatest 20th-century works and offering a special guest spot to one of today's most exciting artists, Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang! It's no wonder that this event sold out weeks in advance — but you can catch every note live, and on replay, on medici.tv.

Vilde Frang brings her unmistakable flair to Edward Elgar's Violin Concerto, one of the composer's own favorites, first performed in 1910 by this very orchestra and bearing an inscription whose dedicatee remains as mysterious as anything in the Enigma Variations: "Herein is enshrined the soul of....." After the intermission, Sir Antonio leads the LSO in an out-of-this-world rendition of Gustav Holst's beloved suite The Planets, a voyage from the cinematic "Mars, the Bringer of War" (which seems to prefigure John Williams) and ebullient "Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity" to the spectral “Neptune, the Mystic,” brought to an otherworldly close by a wordless chorus, performed here by the acclaimed choir Tenebrae.

Photo © Frances Marshall