BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Prom 72: Symphonie fantastique/orchestral theatre staging – Baynton/Aurora/Collon [1/2]
When did you last see a symphony orchestra playing from memory and wearing sinister masks? This specially devised and family-friendly presentation vividly brought to life Berlioz’s ground-breaking Symphonie fantastique. Its...
Prom 71: Bach Night – Dunedin Consort & John Butt – J. S. Bach’s Four Orchestral Suites (BWV1066-1069) and four commissions: Muhly, Wishart, Robertson, MacRae
I must confess to still enjoying recordings of Bach’s orchestral music recorded decades ago, such as by Boyd Neel (with piano!) and Britten of the Brandenburg Concertos. I was therefore...
Prom 70: Jonny Greenwood, premiere of Horror vacui
There has been something of a nostalgic throwback this week to contemporary music concerts of yesteryear, always overrunning with stage-changes and the unpredictability of how long new works are. It...
Prom 69: Czech Philharmonic – Semyon Bychkov conducts The Bartered Bride & Shostakovich 8 – Elena Stikhina sings Tatiana’s Letter Scene from Eugene Onegin
Joining the end-of-Proms beauty parade of visiting orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic and its Chief Conductor of barely one year, Semyon Bychkov, arrived not so much as an international brand as...
Prom 68: Wagner Night – Marc Albrecht conducts the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra with Christine Goerke & Stephen Gould
This was the first of three concerts in this the final week of Proms 2019 which hark back to Henry Wood’s inclination to feature programmes devoted to one composer. Wagner...
Proms at … Cadogan Hall/Proms Chamber Music 8: Tribute to Oliver Knussen | Knussen Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth
The final stop in this year’s Proms Chamber Music 800-year journey brought us right up to date and featured the newest ensemble in the roster: the Knussen Chamber Orchestra, founded...
Prom 67: BBC Symphony Orchestra – Sakari Oramo conducts Night on Bare Mountain, Forest, and Sibelius 5 – Nora Fischer gives the UK premiere of Louis Andriessen’s The Only One
Sakari Oramo has pursued a typically varied repertoire over his appearances at this season’s Proms, and this one was no exception in its juxtaposing two contrasted recent pieces with two...
Prom 66: European premiere of John Luther Adams’s In the Name of the Earth
Move over Stockhausen! Easily overshadowing Gruppen’s three orchestras at different locations, this morning Prom brought together eight London choirs, spacing them in four groups about the Royal Albert Hall at...
Prom 65: Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen conducted by Constantinos Carydis with Danae Kontora – Mozart, Strauss, Beethoven
A nearly full Royal Albert Hall audience assembled for Danae Kontora’s vocal pyrotechnics, despatched in complementary music of two of the composers most devoted to the soprano voice, despite being...
Prom 64: The Breaks
Prom 64 took a spirited deep dive into the musically alchemic form of the Break, with Jules Buckley and the Heritage Orchestra in collaboration with an impressive roster of performers,...
Prom 63: Staatskapelle Dresden – Myung-Whun Chung conducts Brahms – Yuja Wang plays Rachmaninov
A tonal excursion from minor to major usually has some life-enhancing magic, but from Staatskapelle Dresden and its principal guest conductor Myung-Whun Chung this concert felt doggedly rooted in the...
Prom 62: Canzionere Grecanico Salentino
Italy's own medievalist folk-rock band Canzioniere Grecanico Salentino was founded during the great era of Steeleye Span, Trader Home and Fairpoint Convention adding Mediterranean heat and resonance to an oft-ethereal...
Prom 61: Vienna Philharmonic – Andrés Orozco-Estrada conducts The Noonday Witch & New World Symphony – Leonidas Kavakos plays Korngold’s Violin Concerto
Following Bernard Haitink’s semi-official farewell to UK concertizing was never going to be easy. (No matter that others have found more Romantic subjectivity or philosophical depth in Bruckner’s Seventh.) The...
Prom 60: Bernard Haitink conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in Bruckner 7 – Emanuel Ax plays Beethoven
At the end of his biography at the back of the printed programme, there was a neutral statement that Bernard Haitink would be taking a sabbatical after this season. This...
Prom 59: John Eliot Gardiner conducts Berlioz’s Benvenuto Cellini
September may have arrived, ushering in the waning of Summer, the home stretch of this year’s Proms season, and here the end of John Eliot Gardiner’s five-year Berlioz cycle at...
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