Brexit in the concert hall? No thank-you! Andrew Manze proves with infectious enthusiasm that there is no substance to all the rumours about England as a country without music. For his debut with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the principal conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie has chosen to perform works from his native Britain.With his imaginative »London Symphony«, Ralph Vaughan Williams erects a musical memorial to the British capital, with the chimes of Big Ben, the hustle and bustle of city life and the fogbound River Thames.Henry Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary, first performed in 1695 at her burial in Westminster Abbey, ended up being played again at the composer’s own funeral: »Orpheus Britannicus« died in November of the same year.Some 250 years later, one of his successors on the throne of English composers, William Walton, wrote a lyrical cello concerto for Gregor Piatigorsky. To this day, only a handful of cellists have this much too rarely-played work in their repertoire. Alban Gerhardt is one of them. read less