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Sir Simon Rattle conducts music in which vast landscapes merge with the human soul: Sibelius tone poems and Bruckner’s radiant Seventh Symphony.

Bruckner said that the beginning of his Seventh Symphony came to him in a dream, played by an angel. This huge, glowing mountain range of sound is basically soul music by any other name. Far away in Finland, meanwhile, Sibelius was thinking big too. Whether it’s the sun dancing on the Mediterranean Sea, or the forests of the far north, you can practically feel the freshness in the air.

Sir Simon Rattle has been conducting Sibelius since he was a teenager, making him an unrivalled guide through this untamed musical landscape. And conducting Bruckner, says Rattle, is a lifelong quest for some ‘extraordinary vista, some wonderful moment which leads you out of this world’.

‘It moved me to tears. For a long time afterwards I was completely transported…what a strangely profound spirit.’ – Sibelius on the music of Bruckner

Recorded at Barbican Hall in London and presented by Martin Handley.

Sibelius: The Oceanides
Sibelius: Tapiola

8.05pm Interval Music

8.25pm
Bruckner: Symphony No 7

London Symphony Orchestra
Sir Simon Rattle conductor