BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Prom 13 Cr. Chris Christodoulou 13
Prom 13: The Wreckers
Blown in like a storm petrel from deepest, darkest Sussex, Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers (or should that be Les Naufrageurs, given the decision to sing it in French?) returned to the Proms in...
Prom 5 CR.Chris Christodoulou 20
Prom 5: BBC Philharmonic – Juanjo Mena conducts Bruckner & Bach – Lawrence Power plays MacMillan’s Viola Concerto
This Prom was to have featured the premiere of Cassandra Miller’s Viola Concerto, but the withdrawal of Omer Meir Wellber presumably necessitated the partial change in the programme. Juanjo Mena...
First Night of the Proms CR.Chris Christodoulou 17
BBC Proms 2022 – Verdi’s Requiem
Verdi’s Requiem is no stranger to the First Night of the Proms and can work well in the cavernous and unpredictable acoustic of the Royal Albert Hall. What an individual...
Pavel Kolesnikov Prom CR.Chris Christodoulou 6
Pavel Kolesnikov plays Bach’s Goldberg Variations
This season’s penultimate Prom was not the sometime-traditional Choral Symphony but another German musical Everest, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, played by the young Siberian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov, given the accolade of a Proms...
Prom 43 Proms Festival Orchestra CR Chris Christodoulou 12
Gustav Mahler’s Fifth Symphony & Dmitri Shostakovich’s Festive Overture – Proms Festival Orchestra conducted by Mark Wigglesworth
A Mahler Symphony heard before an audience. At last. Social-distancing and Mahler are not obviously compatible – seven horns and five trumpets amongst the 87 players here for his Fifth...
Prom 42 Halle Elder Grosvenor Lapwood CR Chris Christodoulou 13
Mark Elder conducts the Hallé with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor and organist Anna Lapwood in music by Unsuk Chin, Beethoven and Saint-Saëns
Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé in London for the Proms had the feeling of a royal progress. The Royal Albert Hall was packed, including the arena, the Proms ‘buzz’...
BBC Concert Orchestra and James McVinnie Prom CR Chris Christodoulou 3
BBC Concert Orchestra and Anna-Maria Helsing with James McVinnie, in music by Einojuhani Rautavaara, Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass and Samy Moussa
The Royal Albert Hall was sparsely occupied for this sequence of ambient, minimalist and meditative music from the BBC Concert Orchestra with its Principal Guest Conductor Anna-Maria Helsing and organist...
Pauline Viardot
BBC New Generation Artist Ema Nikolovska and pianist Malcolm Martineau evoke Pauline Viardot’s salon for a lunchtime recital of music by the 19th-century composer and her dazzling friends and contemporaries
For those with any knowledge of the history of great singing the name of Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) looms large. Contemporary accounts reveal her to have been one of the compelling...
RLPO and Sheku Kanneh Mason 18 CR Chris Christodoulou
Sheku Kanneh-Mason as soloist in Antonín Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, former BBC Young Composer winner Grace-Evangeline Mason presents a world premiere, with music by Paul Hindemith & Richard Strauss – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic & Domingo Hindoyan
This was a terrific Prom on this gloriously sunny Sunday evening, and it attracted the highest number of Prommers, and overall audience, as I have seen this season. No doubt...
Prom 38 Sinfonia of London and John Wilson CR Chris Christodoulou 13
John Wilson conducts the Sinfonia of London in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus Overture & Korngold’s Symphony, and Francesca Chiejina joins them for Berg’s Seven Early Songs
In recent years John Wilson has emerged as a significant figure in British music life, even if the Royal Albert Hall still knows him best as the man who extended...
RAH organ
Peter Holder pays tribute to centenary composer Saint-Saëns with his Fantaisie No. 1, and also plays Widor, Liszt, J. S. Bach, and Meyerbeer
Anton Bruckner and Camille Saint-Saëns gave organ recitals here in 1871 (both the Royal Albert Hall’s and this Willis organ’s inaugural year) and the latter also in 1880; Peter Holder...
9 BBC SO Bychkov CR Chris Christodoulou
BBCSO conducted by Semyon Bychkov perform Beethoven & Mendelssohn, and are joined by Kirill Gerstein in Schumann’s Piano Concerto
The BBCSO and Semyon Bychkov clearly enjoy each other’s company. He ‘sits’ on the orchestra’s Günter Wand Conducting Chair (created for him), and he has been a Proms regular over...
BBCCO Bramwell Tovey 11 CR Chris Christodoulou
BBC Concert Orchestra and Bramwell Tovey perform classic British film scores, celebrating Malcolm Arnold on the centenary of his birth
Whilst Hollywood may be the acknowledged home of narrative film scoring Britain had a long and glorious history in the twentieth century that has frequently been undervalued. It has always...
3 BBC Proms Mahler Chamber Orchestra CR Chris Christodoulou
Mahler Chamber Orchestra play Knussen, Purcell, Ravel with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, and Benjamin, conducted by George Benjamin
“There seems to be an English composer called George Benjamin” joked soloist Pierre-Laurent Aimard, opening the slim score of the encore demanded by a pleasingly well-attended arena of Prommers, after...
BBCSSO Prom Volkov Patricia Kopatchinskaja CR Chris Christodoulou 6
Ilan Volkov joins Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Folktone for Béla Bartók and Hungarian Folk Music with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
There was a fiery intent to this Prom, originally conceived with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra’s chief conductor Thomas Dausgaard, following from his similar investigation of the folk music roots of...