BBC Symphony Orchestra: Berio, Verdi at Barbican Hall

Two fascinating concert works by the king of Italian opera, Giuseppe Verdi, alongside one of the most startling and original vocal works of the 20th century by compatriot Luciano Berio. Synergy Vocals take on the amplified solo parts originally written for the Swingle Singers in Berio’s 1969 Sinfonia, in which fragments of text decrying war and racial segregation jostle with quotations from the classical canon in a shimmering multi-layered melee. It was Berio, too, who penned the imaginative orchestration of Verdi’s rarely-performed Eight Romances for tenor and orchestra, here featuring the exciting young Brazilian tenor Atalla Ayan. We end with Verdi’s rousing Four Sacred Pieces, including the beguiling Ave Maria for unaccompanied voices.