BBC Symphony Orchestra 2026/27 Francisco Coll conducts Honegger, Coll & Prokofiev

They call it 'Duende' - the untamed passion at the heart of flamenco. For the poet Federico García Lorca, it was “that mysterious power that everyone feels but no philosopher can explain”, and it’s the driving spirit behind Coll’s extraordinary Ciudad sin sueño (“The city that never sleeps”), a fantasia for piano and orchestra inspired by an impossible dream, played today by the superb Elisabeth Brauss with the composer himself conducting.

A composer always hears things differently, and Coll has made his concerto the centrepiece of a whole concert inspired by fantasy at it most thrillingly physical. He opens with Honegger’s uninhibited sonic scrum-down before diving into the psychedelic imagination of the young Prokofiev: a musical fairytale where princesses live inside giant oranges and laughter proves an alarmingly potent medicine. You’ll already know the tunes: now hear them in 3D and full colour with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

The concert will last for approximately one hour.