John Toal presents a live BBC Radio 3 Invitation Concert with the Ulster Orchestra from the Ulster Hall, Belfast on Monday 6 December

The programme brings together three 19th century works, renowned for their atmosphere and vivid pictures.

Waldweben or Forest Mumurs comes from Act II of Wagner’s Siegfried, premiered at the Bayreuth Festival in 1876. It’s the sequence where Siegfried stretches himself out comfortably under the lime tree and quickly becomes lost in silent reverie, looking up through the branches.

Mussorgsky’s Song and Dances of Death were written a year earlier and set four poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a relative of the composer. Each song deals with death in a poetic manner, although the depictions are realistic in that they reflect experiences not uncommon in 19th century Russia: child death, death in youth, drunken misadventure and war.

Despite its title. with echoes of ancient Scandinavian epic poems, Sibelius’s musical fairy tale En Saga has no specific story. In later years Sibelius claimed that the work’s atmosphere was a revelation of his own character: if so, this is surely a journey of a soul through a supernatural landscape.

Jessica Cottis returns to conduct the Ulster Orchestra, with BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists William Thomas* as the bass soloist.

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      • using a paper certificate obtained from the HSCNI
      • using your COVID-19 Vaccination Card and photographic ID matching the name on your vaccination card
    • Proof of a negative lateral flow test taken no more than 48 hours prior to attending the event. Individuals are required to report their negative test result in advance to obtain digital proof by email and/or text message
    • Proof of natural immunity shown by a positive PCR test result for COVID-19, taken in the previous 30 to 180 days

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