BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Proms at … Cadogan Hall/Proms Chamber Music 7: Silesian Quartet & Wojciech Świtała – Weinberg SQ7 & Bacewicz PQ1
Arriving in the twentieth-century, the Proms lunchtime’s 800-year musical survey concentrated on two divergent Polish composers working in the 1950s; although Weinberg had found refuge in Soviet Russia, Bacewicz (here...
Prom 58: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra – Ilan Volkov conducts Nuages, Fiddler’s Child & Little Russian Symphony – Georgia Jarman sings Love Songs of Hafiz
Ilan Volkov is an exceptional musician not usually associated with popular programming. Still, it’s difficult to see how this determinedly low-key event got planning permission: the top layers of the...
Prom 57: Long Yu & Shanghai Symphony Orchestra – Qigang Chen & Rachmaninov – Eric Lu plays Mozart K488
The cock had to crow early for this Prom which began at the unusual hour of 11 a.m. and featured the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and Long Yu. A near-capacity seated...
Prom 56: Henry Wood Tribute – Bramwell Tovey conducts the BBC Concert Orchestra – with Leon McCawley & Nathaniel Anderson-Frank | Dobrinka Tabakova premiere
A fascinating snapshot of Sir Henry Wood’s achievements; an intelligently designed programme certainly, but the end results were mixed.The sumptuous evocation of all things Spanish that is the opening Ravel...
Prom 55: Handel’s Jephtha – Allan Clayton, Hilary Summers, Jeanine De Bique; conducted by Richard Egarr
Despite the serious, fatalistic subject of Handel’s late oratorio, Jephtha (1751) – surely the closest he came to a Greek tragic drama in terms of its metaphysical theme – this...
Prom 54: Duke Ellington’s Sacred Music
It might seem surprising that the music which makes up Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts is only now receiving its due at the Proms. Derived almost entirely from those three such...
Prom 53: BBC Symphony Chorus & Orchestra – Andrew Davis conducts VW’s Tallis Fantasia, Hugh Wood’s Scenes from Comus, and Elgar’s The Music Makers
Three works by British composers of different generations made up this programme: three serious works, nothing meretricious but sufficiently varied in character and timbre – to say nothing of individual...
Prom 52: Britten Sinfonia – Ryan Wigglesworth conducts Tchaikovsky’s Mozartiana & Stravinsky’s Fairy’s Kiss | Marc-André Hamelin premieres Wigglesworth’s Piano Concerto | Wigglesworth & Hamelin play Mozart K365
Reviewed from live BBC Radio 3 broadcast... Mozart inspires Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky motivates Stravinsky. Mozart writes a Concerto for Two Pianos (for himself and his sister), Ryan Wigglesworth composes a Piano...
Prom 51: Glyndebourne Festival Opera – Barbe & Doucet’s production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte; conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth
Try as one might, it’s difficult to see any meaningful connection between Mozart’s great opera of the Enlightenment, The Magic Flute, and the grand-hotel setting into which it is ignominiously...
Prom 50: Orchestre de Paris – Daniel Harding conducts Genoveva Overture, Babylon Suite, and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony
What more appropriate way to end a hot, windless Bank Holiday Monday, begun with breakfast in Vienna, off the U-Bahn 4 from Heiligenstadt, than a London Prom and Beethoven's 'Pastoral'...
Proms at … Cadogan Hall/Proms Chamber Music 6: Amatis Piano Trio plays Robert & Clara Schumann
Continuing its 800-year musical survey with an eye to redressing the gender balance by introducing female composers to the Proms roster, this sixth PCM hadn’t moved much in time and...
Prom 49: The Lost Words
This season – marking the 150th-anniversary of the birth of the founder of the Proms – has celebrated Sir Henry Wood with a series of Novelties (pieces he introduced to...
Prom 48: BBC Symphony Orchestra – Cristian Măcelaru conducts Silvestri & Rachmaninov – Seong-Jin Cho plays Prokofiev
The chance to see Cristian Măcelaru make his Proms debut was probably less of a draw than the return visit of Seong-Jin Cho but the place was packed, heatwave notwithstanding....
Prom 47: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra – Andris Nelsons conducts Bruckner 8 | Michael Schönheit plays J. S. Bach on the Royal Albert Hall organ
The last time Bruckner’s Eighth was played at the Proms (in 2013, Vienna Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel), it was prefaced by a short recital of J. S. Bach organ music....
Prom 46: CBSO – Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conducts Lamia, The Way to Castle Yonder, and Weinberg’s Symphony 3 – Sheku Kanneh-Mason plays Elgar’s Cello Concerto
There can be few now alive who recall the profile enjoyed by Lamia during the inter-war period. Completed in 1918, this symphonic poem after Keats's fanciful verse of that name...
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