Prom 42: Lest We Forget by Stephan, R., Kelly, F. S., Butterworth, Vaughan Williams, De (2014/2014), Director musical Andrew Manze, Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom

Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad reflects a world on the brink of collapse while Vaughan Williams’s Pastoral Symphony is a vision of war-ravaged France. Like Butterworth, both Rudi Stephan and Frederick Kelly were killed in the First World War; the latter’s exquisite Elegy for strings was performed at his own memorial concert. Stephan’s Music for Orchestra (1912) finds a desperate intensity in its Expressionist colours.