BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Nutcracker & Iolanta
The pairing of Tchaikovsky's final opera “Iolanta” with his final ballet “The Nutcracker”, as heard in St Petersburg on 18 December 1892 – and in that order – made for...
Proms Chamber Music – 5 (Lars Vogt)
Lars Vogt is built on a great, bear-like frame. There is nothing ungainly about him, however. He glides onto the platform in immaculate control of his physical presence, modestly. He...
West-Eastern Divan Orchestra
This was a time when the music mattered not all that much – at least not for the audience. As Daniel Barenboim said in his impromptu speech at the official...
Africa 05 Baaba Maal
Halfway through the 2005 Proms (four weeks to the Last Night!) and the annual world-music Prom is this year devoted to “Africa 05”, part of the much wider festival running...
Beethoven’s 5th
Mendelssohn has probably not received sufficient recognition for being a leading figure of the early Romantic Movement. After all he wrote a lot of works in the inherited, classical forms...
The Little Mermaid
The first of two mermaids at this year’s Proms (the second is in Zemlinsky’s opulent tone poem on 4 September), Bent Sørensen’s work based on fellow-Dane Hans Christian Andersen’s most...
Karl Amadeus Hartmann
Ingo Metzmacher's Proms are rarely less than arresting in terms of repertoire and performance, and this concert promised to a be a rewarding one. Certainly there was no lack of...
snagS & Snarls
A Prom with its own brand of subtly pervasive Romanticism – opening with an account of the overture to Weber's “Der Freischütz” which evoked Mendelssohn in its formal security and...
Songs of the Sea & Enigma Variations
A truly dismal evening redeemed – just – by Philippe Graffin's fine advocacy of the more-or-less forgotten Coleridge-Taylor Violin Concerto (1911) which is currently enjoying something of a revival in...
The Planets Plus Pluto
A capacity audience heard some of the finest works composed by three 20th-century English composers, united by a love and admiration for Tudor music. Indeed Vaughan Williams used a tune...
Proms Chamber Music – 4 (Felicity Lott)
Felicity Lott is the doyenne of French song and this recital, including the encores by Poulenc, encapsulated the genre. Pascal Rogé cancelled and was replaced by Eugene Asti, and a...
Das Klagende Lied
Berg and Mahler are frequently juxtaposed in concert programmes these days, though the former's Opus 6 and the latter's effective 'Opus 1' would seem to be a previously untried pairing:...
Bobby McFerrin & Friends
Bobby McFerrin is the best music teacher you never had. Seated in front of the African Children’s Choir, he prompts its members to copy his vocal licks, and in seconds...
National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
Under the right circumstances things happen with youth orchestras which seldom occur with professional groups – bringing the freshness and excitement of first-love to repertoire which in more experienced hands...
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
The start of this concert was delayed by nearly an hour due to some technical problems that were causing a variety of noises to emerge from loudspeakers. Whilst we were...