BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Prom 42: François-Xavier Roth conducts Les Siècles – Saint-Saëns, Delibes, Franck, Lalo – Cédric Tiberghien plays the Egyptian Piano Concerto & Les Djinns
The musicians of Les Siècles pride themselves on having an instrument for every occasion, something commensurate with the timbres of the era that a piece was written, and there were...
Prom 41: Passages by Philip Glass & Ravi Shankar – Anoushka Shankar & Britten Sinfonia conducted by Karen Kamensek
Serendipitously programmed (there was no mention in the Proms Guide, nor in the meagre programme) for the exact seventieth-anniversary of Indian Independence (and Partition), Passages was the 1990 east-meets-west collaboration...
Prom 40: Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Robin Ticciati – Tragic Overture, Nocturne Insomnia, Rhenish Symphony – Christian Tetzlaff plays Berg’s Violin Concerto
This was a concert of variable quality. It began with a somewhat disappointing account of Brahms’s Tragic Overture – disappointing in terms of basic pulse and of execution. Essentially, Robin...
Prom 39: Kazushi Ono conducts Debussy’s Faune & Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Hibiki – Inon Barnatan plays Ravel
At around fifty minutes, Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Hibiki stands as one of the most substantial (along with the purely orchestral Speranza of 2012) of his concert works in the past two...
Proms at … Cadogan Hall, PCM5 – Shostakovich – Alexander Melnikov & Latvian Radio Choir
Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues and his Poems on Texts by Revolutionary Poets both date from that period in the early-1950s when the composer was still trying to get back into...
Prom 38: Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil (Vespers) – Latvian Radio Choir conducted by Sigvards Kļava
Following its brief contributions to Prom 37 earlier in the evening, the twenty-four-piece Latvian Radio Choir and Sigvards Kļava returned to the Royal Albert Hall for Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil, sometimes...
Prom 37: Rachmaninov – Thomas Dausgaard conducts Symphony 2 & Alexander Gavrylyuk plays Piano Concerto 3 – Latvian Radio Choir sings Russian Orthodox chant
This Prom reflected on the link between Russian Orthodox chant and the music of Rachmaninov. Although the composer wasn’t particularly religious, he did compose several sacred choral works – most...
Prom 36: Thomas Dausgaard conducts Symphonies by Schubert (Unfinished) & Mahler (Tenth)
Not your usual concatenation of random classics though Thomas Dausgaard might perhaps have considered giving us Brian Newbould’s completion of the Schubert. Making his first Proms appearance as chief conductor...
Proms at … Southwark Cathedral – Palestrina & Judith Weir – BBC Singers & Nash Ensemble conducted by David Hill
For its first “Proms at …” outing in London this season (the previous concert in the sequence of four had been in Hull), the focus turned not as far east...
Prom 35: John Wilson conducts Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! [evening performance]
It would be easy to write numerous superlatives and stop there. Oklahoma! was indeed excellent – the John Wilson Orchestra honed into an ensemble that comes to musicals as an...
Prom 34: John Wilson conducts Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! [matinee performance]
Oh what a beautiful musical! Not a Proms first (there had been a concert version given in 2002, marking Richard Rodgers’s centenary, with Maureen Lipman reprising her award-winning National Theatre...
Prom 33: BBC Philharmonic/John Storgårds – Peer Gynt, Karelia Suite, Mathis der Maler – Lise Davidsen sings Sibelius’s Luonnotar & Alban Gerhardt plays Schumann’s Cello Concerto
A welcome Prom of great music, only a couple of the pieces being heard these days with the frequency they deserve, and all given with the essential qualities needed for...
Prom 32: Ballad of Heroes, Purcell/Elgar, Enigma Variations, Leonard Elschenbroich premieres Brian Elias’s Cello Concerto – BBCNOW/Ryan Wigglesworth
This was the last of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales’s five Proms for this year, and its stylish playing has been a highlight of the season so far.The programme...
Prom 31: John Eliot Gardiner conducts Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust
The Faust legend is one of those stories that, since the Renaissance, has never stopped giving. Of its various musical manifestations, including those by Gounod, Boito, Mahler and Busoni, Berlioz’s...
Prom 30: Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra/Kirill Karabits – Beethoven Symphony 1, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Seven They Are Seven, Belshazzar’s Feast
Beethoven rubbed shoulders with Richard Strauss in the first half of this Prom. The former’s First Symphony found Kirill Karabits stressing the lyrical nature of the slow introduction and the...
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