BBC Proms: Vaughan Williams’ ‘A London Symphony’

Rome, Paris, London: Vasily Petrenko takes us on a musical tour of Europe. Children play in the gardens of Rome's Villa Borghese, while a nightingale sings at night in high branches; Respighi’s sun-soaked outdoor portrait of Italy’s capital contrasts with both the smoky thrum and after-hours jazz rhythms of Milhaud’s Le boeuf sur le toit – a musical homage to Paris – and the impressionistic colours of Vaughan Williams’s A London Symphony, in which Big Ben’s chimes and a busker’s harmonica break through the urban bustle.