Three genre-defining works of the repertoire commune with three new commissions to invoke the four classical elements of earth, air, fire and water. A celebration of our home planet, Colin Jacobsen's A Short While to Be Here reflects on life's transience and pays homage to Ruth Crawford Seeger – one of America's most visionary twentieth-century composers.

Akshaya Avril Tucker's Hollow Flame grapples with the devastating effects of climate change. Developed through the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music's 'Composing Earth' program, the work attempts to reconcile the conflicting emotions of grief, fear, anxiety, empathy, numbness and anger in an eviscerating string soundscape.

Andreia Pinto Correia's Aere senza stelle (Air Without Stars) evokes the dust storms from the Sahara Desert to the Iberian Peninsular, conjuring sonic clouds that mirror the structure of extracts from Dante's Inferno. Then comes Henri Dutilleux's startlingly original Ainsi la nuite (Thus the Night), inspired by Proust's preoccupations with time and memory.

Conflagrations are reignited after the interval with Shostakovich's eighth string quartet, dedicated to 'victims of fascism and war'. Osvaldo Golijov's Tenebrae extinguishes the flame with a deeply haunting meditation on the contrasts of human experience, revealing the fragility and vulnerability of our planet.