Sibelius & Bartók: Berkeley

Fabulous colours and untamed emotions. Sir Simon Rattle celebrates the music he loves – and the sheer wonder of the sound it makes.

A spark spirals skywards, a Mediterranean squall strikes spray from the wavetops and a trombone powers its melody through swirling clouds of strings. Tonight, Sir Simon Rattle conducts a concert that’s all about colour, from Berlioz’s sunlit seascape to the iridescent dreams (and nightmares) of Bartók and Ravel.

And no question, it’s going to be a fabulously vivid journey, as Sir Simon revisits scores that he’s loved almost as long as he’s loved music. Whether it’s the elemental power of Sibelius’ Seventh Symphony, or the eerie sensuality of Ravel’s doomed waltz, these are works in which he has something unique to say: music in which – like Hannah Kendall’s 21st-century classic The Spark Catchers – atmosphere and emotion fuse into something much, much bigger than the sum of their parts.