BBC Proms (1947) : 68x26

This concert from the European Union Youth Orchestra opens with Berio’s 20th-century classic, Sinfonia – a witty, whistle-stop tour through centuries of Western culture, from Bach to The Beatles. Shostakovich’s embattled Fourth Symphony attempts to reconcile the same conflicts and contradictions as Berio, but finds only Babel and madness, in one of the composer’s most confrontational works.