Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, live in stereo from the Royal Albert Hall, play two works by Britten and Mahler of deeply personal and contrasting natures.

Britten Sinfonia da Requiem, Op 20.

Britten's Sinfonia was composed in memory of his parents and first performed in New York in 1941 during his pacifist exile from wartime Britain.
Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War. Introduced by John Tusa.

7.50pm* Interval: The Proms 50 Years Ago
Sir Henry Wood was determined the Proms must go on. So, despite the destruction of the Queen's Hall, the evacuation of the BBC Symphony Orchestra to Bristol and the refusal of the BBC to broadcast the Proms for two years, they never completely closed. John Tusa and eye-witnesses Malcolm Arnold, Moura Lympany, Steve Race and Dame Eva Turner recount the struggle to maintain public musical life, despite the bombs.

8.10pm* Live from the Proms Mahler Symphony No 7.
A vast work requiring virtuoso playing. The second and fourth movements, both entitled 'Nightmare', give it a particularly spectral quality.

(Simultaneous Broadcast with Radio 3)
(Feature: page 74)
* Approximate time