Mark Elder, Malin Christensson, Robin Tritschler, Halle Choir

Sir Mark conducts an attractive programme that begins with Stravinsky’s charming Four Norwegian Moods, a work that draws on genuine folk songs. Rachmaninov’s Three Russian Songs are also greatly influenced by folk song and express deep nostalgia for the composer’s homeland, from which he was by then in exile.

In his Song of the High Hills, Bradford-born Delius expressed ‘the joy and rapture’ he experienced in the mountains of Norway, a wordless chorus adding to the effect.

The concert ends with Tchaikovsky’s magnificent tone poem Francesca da Rimini.