the psychological interiority of the singer against the backdrop of an external dramatic setting, and so they positively invite being opened out in this quasi-operatic fashion, as Liszt evidently recognised.

Storgårds set a dark and brooding background for ‘Die junge Nonne’, rather than a stormy one to match the words, and paradoxically it was only in the third verse, as the nun acknowledges that her restlessness has now yielded to spiritual peace, that Elizabeth Watts’s singing became more urgent, reflecting the import of the poem instead of the overt narrative logic. With a clearly-focused and lyrical voice, rather than dramatic, she projected the melodies well over the orchestra in all four songs, whether radiant or arresting. She characterised the three different characters of ‘Erlkönig’ without sacrificing musical coherence, andterse and condensed symphonic meditation upon the fragmentation of post-World War Two society. Launched with a screaming, blazing opening, this account maintained a nervous, edgy disposition throughout, creating a sense of anticipation in the otherwise delicate shimmers of sound which succeed that, and underlining the vicious march-like section with appropriate Shostakovichian irony. Contributions from the brass added Romantic-style gravitas, if not resolution, escalating to the Symphony’s conclusion which offered necessary musical finality if rightly not an emotional or spiritual one.

Sonorous brass was also to the fore in Sibelius’s last-completed Symphony. The expansive, ascending scale at the opening with its crescendo was here portentous, but that did not quite carry through the rest of the performance. Although tempos were generally well-judged, allowing the music to flow like a river