Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet

BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Martyn Brabbins are joined by euphonium player David Childs.

Love in all its colours - desire, tenderness, loss and fate - runs through this evening's concert. It opens with the shimmering orchestral colours and dreamlike beauty of Debussy’s Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune. Virtuoso David Childs joins the orchestra as soloist in Paul Mealor’s Euphonium Concerto, a moving work drawn from a Gaelic tale of lost love. This is followed by a rare and evocative voice: Theodore Akimenko’s Angel: Poem Nocturne, a piece deeply shaped by exile and the composer's lifelong devotion to Ukrainian culture.

After the interval, the full weight of love’s ecstasy and catastrophe takes the stage through the searing intensity in a selection from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.

Recorded earlier this month at Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, and presented by Shân Cothi.

Debussy: Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
Paul Mealor: Euphonium Concerto
Akimenko: Angel (Poème-Nocturne)
Prokofiev: Selections from Romeo and Juliet

David Childs (euphonium)
BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Martyn Brabbins (conductor)

To listen on most smart speakers, just say "ask BBC Sounds to play Radio 3 In Concert."