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Sir Antonio Pappano photographed against a grey background, sat in a chair and looking away from the camera into the distance.

On Tour at the Edinburgh International Festival: Britten, Vaughan Williams & Elgar

Sir Antonio Pappano, Ian Bostridge & LSO Musicians

The Queen's Hall, Edinburgh

Wednesday 13 August 2025 • 11am

Book Tickets

The Concert

Benjamin Britten Winter Words
Ralph Vaughan Williams On Wenlock Edge
Edward Elgar Piano Quintet

Sir Antonio Pappano piano
Ian Bostridge tenor
Benjamin Gilmore violin
Julián Gil Rodríguez
 violin
Eivind Ringstad
 viola
David Cohen
 cello

Sung in Italian and English with English surtitles

 

Tickets

General On Sale 12pm Thursday 27 March
From £15.50 

Available from the Edinburgh International Festival

Expressive singing reveals the emotional depth of Benjamin Britten, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar.

The Programme

One of the most emotive singers working today, Ian Bostridge frequently performs music by Benjamin Britten, who wrote some of his most personal and heartfelt songs for the tenor voice.

Britten’s Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo are sung alongside Ralph Vaughan Williams’ elegiac On Wenlock Edge from 1909 which brings the poetry of AE Housman to life. Vaughan Williams wrote the cycle following lessons with the French composer Maurice Ravel. He remarked that his music thereafter had a ‘French polish’, which can definitely be heard in this shimmering piece.

Edward Elgar’s Piano Quintet (1918) is a piece of great contrasts: melancholic and vigorous, sustained and fragmented. Composed at the end of World War I, and one of Elgar’s final works, it is a powerful and very human response to the horrors of the previous years.

 

Supported by Susie Thomson

Header Image © Mark Allan