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Richard Wagner’s atmospheric Prelude to his opera Lohengrin(1848) is followed by Kurt Weill’s visceral response in 1941 to the bombing of Pearl Harbour – his setting of four powerful poems by the great American poet Walt Whitman, sung by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 3 New Generation Artist James Atkinson. Weill, the German-born Jewish émigré, fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and made his home in the USA.

There’s a short lyrical work for strings by Florence Price, the first African-American woman recognized as an orchestral composer, and the concert ends with Charles Ives’ recreation (complete with the sound of a marching band) of Decoration Day – the US federal holiday honouring US military personnel who have died in line of duty. It’s one of the four colourful movements from Ives’ A New England Holiday Symphony (1887-1913).