BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Concentric Paths
Few musicians in the Proms century-plus history can have appeared as composer, conductor and pianist, something that Thomas Adès has achieved in little more than a decade. Here he featured...
Alan Rawsthorne
There could not have been a bigger contrast between the two halves of this Prom. In the first we heard two near-contemporary Britains, Benjamin Britten and Alan Rawsthorne, both emotionally...
Proms Chamber Music – 8 (Artemis Quartet)
A perplexing recital. The last of the Proms Chamber Music concerts featured the Artemis Quartet, part of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme, a Berlin-based ensemble playing together, in...
The Mermaid & A German Requiem
Sandwiched between a young American girl – who was restless enough during the fairy tale element of the concert, Zemlinsky's orchestral triptych based on bicentenary birthday-boy Hans Christian Andersen's “The...
Juilliard & Royal Academy of Music Orchestras
The Juilliard School of Music in New York celebrates its centenary this coming season. Although there seemed to be no statement to that effect, this concert, which marked the debut...
Royal Concertgebouw – 2
In their second appearance at the Proms this season, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and its Chief Conductor Mariss Jansons impressed with a vibrant reading of Lutoslawski’s most popular orchestral work...
Thomas Tallis
It was appropriate for the majority of the music in this Prom to be composed by Thomas Tallis whose 500th-anniversary we celebrate during 2005, although there is some doubt as...
Royal Concertgebouw – 1
Mahler is not the great composer many take him to be; rather, he’s an average one, promoted beyond his merits. Already I anticipate there are some disconcerted readers out there,...
Cleveland Orchestra Missa Solemnis
Since the days of George Szell, the Cleveland Orchestra has been one of the world’s greatest. Its sound combines warmth and refinement with rich concentrated string tone, transparent brass and...
cummings ist der Dichter
The original version of 1920 – as opposed to the 1947 revision – of Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments opened this most interesting and generally well-performed concert.Written in memory of...
Cleveland Orchestra Mahler 3
The Clevelanders haven’t been to the Proms for a number of years – Christoph von Dohnányi’s last visit with the Orchestra was back in the 20th-century. So this was the...
Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra
The Swiss have long held efficiency and precision as watchwords of their character. In musical terms the Tonhalle Orchestra, Zurich under its chief conductor David Zinman has taken these qualities...
Proms Chamber Music – 7 (I Fagiolini)
2005 marks the 400th anniversary of both Giacomo Carissimi’s birth and the publication of Claudio Monteverdi’s Fifth Book of Madrigals; his ground-breaking Fourth Book had emphasised the primacy of the...
Verdi Requiem
It was the Royal Albert Hall which housed the first London performance of Verdi's Requiem on 12 May 1875, where it was received less enthusiastically than it had been elsewhere.Since...
World Orchestra for Peace
On paper, this programme might appear somewhat puzzling, given that the first half consisted of 'overture-type' pieces – in actuality or by implication – followed by a work which is...