BBC Philharmonic | 7 May at The Bridgewater Hall

The Harmoniemesse was the last important work written by Joseph Haydn, completed in the year that the great composer turned 70. Yet this is no valediction, no quiet farewell – it’s a work of magnificent ambition and grandeur, ending not with a solemn wave goodbye but an infectious mood of positivity and joy. Chief Conductor Omer Meir Wellber directs a suitably expansive team of musicians and singers in a roof-raising performance tonight, preceded by Strauss’s gracious and elegant homage to baroque master François Couperin.

Strauss Divertimento
Haydn Mass in B flat major, ‘Harmoniemesse’

Soloists from the RNCM and Chetham’s Choir
Omer Meir Wellber conductor