BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Royal String Quartet
Having appeared in part of one of last year’s Proms Chamber Music recitals (accompanying Sir Thomas Allen in Barber’s “Dover Beach”), the Royal String Quartet from Warsaw – BBC Young...
A Haydn Mass & A Schubert Symphony
A concert completely at home in the Royal Albert Hall, Haydn’s great “Missa Sancti Bernardi con Offida”, better known as “Heiligmesse”, filling the first half and Schubert’s vast C major...
The Voice II
Prom 20 (The Voice I) was a triumph, but Prom 21 (The Voice II) was more like the curate’s egg. Parts, like the Wagner prelude, were ghastly. Parts, like Prokofiev’s...
The Voice I
Following on from last year’s “Violins”, the Proms this time celebrated “The Voice” over two concerts – with choirs large and small and ‘The Rabble’, a chorus of enthusiastic novices.The...
Serious Songs and Heldenleben
Sad to report that for this concert the ‘prommers’ abandoned the Royal Albert Hall in droves. The advantage was that those who did come listened ‘properly’ – not providing a...
Bamberg Symphony Orchestra
This was the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra’s first London appearance with music director Jonathan Nott (appointed in 2000) following acclaimed appearance at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2003 and last year....
The Great Venetians
The music composed in the seventeenth-century for St Mark’s Church in Venice forms an astonishing monument to religious power and material wealth. Giovanni Gabrieli, and later Monteverdi, placed multiple choirs...
An Evening of Passacaglias
In its only visit to this year’s Proms, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director, Sakari Oramo, considered the passacaglia, which as a form dates back to...
Juan Diego Flórez
A very warm evening, which was perhaps unfortunate as the programme was, to say the least, full – perhaps too full for total enjoyment. It was a first at the...
Dance Figures
The music of George Benjamin has featured regularly at the Proms since Ringed by the Flat Horizon brought the 20-year-old composer to national prominence in 1980. Surprising, then, that it...
Kate Royal & Christine Rice
This Proms Chamber Music recital presented the admirable Roger Vignoles in the company of two young singers, Kate Royal and Christine Rice, in a programme devised by him.It was with...
In the South … A Colour Symphony … Belshazzar’s Feast
Richard Hickox made his farewell appearance as Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with a programme of British music closely associated with him.Elgar’s In the South needs...
The Cunning Little Vixen
Working backwards, what is arguably Dvořák’s greatest symphony seemed here rather less so. For all that Richard Hickox was alive to the music’s fire, urgency and lyricism, a conspicuous lack...
Blue Peter Safari
Feeling a little under-accompanied, as I went solo to this concert without any young relatives who may be more au-fait with “Blue Peter” in the current century, I was still...
Ramifications
On paper this was a concert in typical form – an overture, albeit not termed as such – a concerto and a symphony, all from central Europe. What could be...