BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Bernard Haitink
Haitink conducts Verdi’s Don Carlos
First appearing at the festival in 1966, Bernard Haitink gave his final Proms performance – his 90th! – in September 2019, on his last week before retirement. In 1996 he...
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Music of the Spheres
In this Prom from the 2010 season, Thomas Dausgaard conducts his Danish forces in Tchaikovsky’s ever-captivating Violin Concerto – written for the composer’s young muse, the violinist Josef Kotek –...
Sir Colin Davis
Colin Davis conducts Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony
Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony is surely the apogee of the pastoral. Here it is prefaced by Sibelius’s late tone-poem, which he premiered in the USA, and Michael Tippett’s shimmering evocation of...
Evgeny Kissin
A solo recital by star pianist Evgeny Kissin
This 1997 recital – the first ever solo piano recital at the Proms – showcases the Russian phenomenon Evgeny Kissin in only his second Proms performance. At 26, his performances...
Carlo Maria Giulini
Carlo Maria Giulini conducts Brahms
Brahms’s development in the time between composing his First and Second Symphonies was remarkable. Despite finishing it less than a year after the premiere of his First, the Second Symphony...
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Mahler’s Seventh Symphony with the BBC Philharmonic
After almost a decade at the helm of the BBC Philharmonic, Gianandrea Noseda (who later became the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate) opened this 2012 Prom with Mozart’s famous overture to Don...
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Paul McCreesh conducts Handel’s Saul
The sole work in tonight's concert is one of Handel’s most dramatic and poignant biblical oratorios, Saul, performed complete by leading period-informed collective the Gabrieli Consort & Players, under Paul...
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Stile Antico and Fretwork celebrate a Shakespearean anniversary
Today's concert comes from 2016, when vocal ensemble Stile Antico and viol consort Fretwork combined to celebrate the 400th anniversary year of the death of England’s great bard, William Shakespeare....
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Richard Strauss: Salome
The crushing, five-note dissonance at the grizzly climax of Richard Strauss’s operatic masterpiece – when Salome kisses the severed head of John the Baptist – is one of the most...
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CBSO, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
The CBSO and Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla explore the theme of political and artistic freedom. Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3, written for his rescue opera Fidelio, celebrates the triumph of truth over...
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Sarah Connolly sings Purcell’s Dido
British mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly led an all-star cast in Purcell's most popular opera. The drama portrays the tragedy of human relationships torn apart by fate and divine intervention, while the...
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Mackerras and Brendel play Mozart
The Scottish Chamber Orchestra and its then Conductor Laureate Charles Mackerras collaborated with Alfred Brendel on a series of performances and recordings of the piano concertos by Mozart, and they...
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Vaughan Williams Symphonies Nos 4, 5 and 6
At the 2012 season Andrew Manze tackled three very different, powerful symphonies by Vaughan Williams which, whatever their own emotional back-stories, may still be seen as chronicling our national life...
The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain
Messiaen’s ecstatic, Eastern-influenced celebration of love is framed by a BBC commission from American talent Nico Muhly and British composer Anna Meredith’s acclaimed tour de force of clapping, stamping, singing...
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Renée Fleming’s Proms Debut
In this her Proms debut, star soprano Renée Fleming performed music by two composers with whom she has long been associated – a florid Mozart motet and Strauss’s ravishing final...