BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Babi Yar
Anatoly Liadov (1855-1914) wrote mostly short pieces, partly due to the difficulties (laziness!) that he incurred in finishing anything. (Otherwise he, rather than Stravinsky, might have written The Firebird.) From...
Shostakovich At The Movies
Despite his broken right-foot – an injury caused when stepping off a podium last week in Belgium – André de Ridder, crutches and all, could not be stopped conducting this...
Pathétique Symphony
It is hard to imagine music darker than Alfred Schnittke’s Viola Concerto, completed in 1985. The composer suffered his first stroke during its composition, and it is difficult not to...
András Schiff
Mozart’s piano music remains one of the most elusive areas of the repertoire; it must be simple without being facile, it requires technical mastery, but not extrovert virtuosity, feeling but...
City of London Sinfonia to the Rescue
With the Orchestra of St Luke’s and Donald Runnicles grounded in New York by transatlantic flight restrictions, it was fortunate, as Nicholas Kenyon said when addressing the audience, that the...
Budapest Festival Orchestra
On paper the first half of this concert was one of the more intriguing of the Proms season in terms of programming – contrasting two pieces by Hungarian composers who...
Scottish Symphony
Another packed Royal Albert Hall welcomed the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its Chief Conductor for an early-Romantic sandwich with Beethoven as the filling. Billed as a Prom continuing this season’s...
Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra
The concert augured well. This was a Finnish occasion – a Finnish orchestra of some 75 years’ standing, a much sought-after Finnish conductor, a distinguished Finnish soprano and a rarely...
Red Over Black
With red over black (inspired by a Mark Rothko painting) a touch over the advertised 13 minutes, it was not surprising that this well-filled lunchtime concert overran. So when the...
Steven Stucky Second Concerto for Orchestra
Perhaps because it followed almost immediately what sounded (on the radio) like a sold-out Prom with Maxim Vengerov, or it was the later-than-usual start-time, or because London was drenched in...
Mozart/Vengerov
It still amuses me how 250 years after the composer’s birth (and not many less years after his death) promoters are able to pack the Royal Albert Hall with an...
European Union Youth Orchestra
Thankfully not visibly delayed following the current alert and increased security at airports, the ranks of the European Union Youth Orchestra (admittedly not as big as the National Youth Orchestra...
John Adams
Two surprising things: that the Royal Albert Hall was not quite as full as anticipated given that the programme comprised music of one of today’s most accessible composers and was...
Steve Reich
Unlike some composers whose anniversaries are being marked by works being performed frequently throughout this Proms season – or, indeed, those who have been totally ignored – Steve Reich's impending...
Andromeda
James Dillon has done well by the Proms over the last fifteen years: four world premieres, all BBC commissions, including the memorable launch of his Violin Concerto in 2000. Andromeda...