Belshazzar’s Feast

The evening

Scale the heights of Sibelius’s passionate Violin Concerto and Walton’s theatrical tour de force.

Whet your appetite for biblical drama with the Dance of the Seven Veils from Ifukube’s Salome. The early-20th century Japanese composer, who wrote nearly 300 film scores, sets Salome’s shocking story in music that is vivid and deliciously theatrical.

Sibelius’s otherworldly Violin Concerto is a masterwork of yearning, its rapt lyricism and plaintive fervour given fresh expression here by soloist Alena Baeva.

Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast brings the programme to a thunderous close: a riotous, splendid choral masterpiece of vast forces, blazing brass and intoxicating rhythm. The Hallé Choir and baritone Roderick Williams promise to add to a performance that heightens the drama at every turn.

A suitably spectacular close to the season!