An evocative plainchant of Hildegard von Bingen begins each half of this journey through a millennium of creation stories. Fauré’s late song cycle, La Chanson d’Eve (The Song of Eve) tells the genesis story through the eyes of Eve. We hear a little-known Mozartian gem about belief and conviction which you’re unlikely to have heard, but imagine if the Queen of the Night and Sarastro had couple’s therapy and worked it out.

After interval, a ghostly a cappella verse brings us close to Haydn’s Creation, with a ninety-second excerpt from Brett Dean’s evolution cantata In This Brief Moment in response. Sibelius gives us a rousing Finnish fairytale about a mermaid in the primordial soup in Luonnotar, before the concert finishes with two stunning songs of piano virtuoso Nikolai Medtner.