Tuesday 22 July 2025 at 7:30pm - 11:30pm

Symphonie fantastique

BBC Proms presents: Berlioz’s ‘Symphonie fantastique’

A concert of larger-than-life sounds, stories and characters has Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique at its heart. Heady, opium-fuelled visions create a kaleidoscopic sequence: a swirling ballroom, a march to the scaffold and a witches’ sabbath, all set to the obsessive pulse of unrequited love.

Sci-fi legend Philip K. Dick inspires Mark Simpson’s ZEBRA, a new concerto for maverick guitarist and former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Sean Shibe. The concert opens with Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration – no less than a musical struggle between life and death, climaxing in a promise of eternal peace. 

Programme

R. Strauss Death and Transfiguration 23’

Mark Simpson ZEBRA (or, 2-3-74: The Divine Invasion of Philip K. Dick) c20’ 

BBC commission: world premiere

Interval

Berlioz Symphonie fantastique 49’

Sean Shibe electric guitar 

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Anja Bihlmaier conductor