BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Photo: Mark Allan
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra filled the stage for an evening of précis suites from three big stage-works clustering round the magnum opus of the Violin Concerto by Wynton Marsalis,...
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
On paper, the text of Elgar's Gerontius, extracted from John Henry Newman's eponymous poem, promises little by way of drama or narrative – not much more, perhaps, than a poetic evocation...
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
The arrival of effective but noisier air-conditioning allied to the ongoing decline in the behaviour of attendees has made Prom-going even more of a lottery. This could have been short-straw...
Photo: Sisi Burn
Fabien Gabel brought together three late-nineteenth-century works written within a decade of one another, with a major-minor-major traversal either side of the interval. And how welcome it was to begin...
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
Simon Rattle dedicated this Prom to the memory of the late Harrison Birtwistle, and so appropriately began in homage to him by returning the compliment of the gift which the...
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
Solomon was not one of Handel’s greatest hits when it was first heard in 1748, but it has been served well enough by the Proms, the most recent being the 1998...
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
This Prom came at the end of Thomas Dausgaard’s six years as Chief Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, with Symphonies by fellow Nordics Sibelius and Nielsen giving a...
Photo: Chris Christodoulou.
In a nice little irony for this programme featuring a new work called Time Flies, the sequence of pieces here was presented in reverse chronological order of composition. That opening item...
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
For his first Proms appearance, at the helm of the Oslo Philharmonic, Klaus Mäkelä prefaced two great feats or depictions of musical heroism with his fellow countryman Sibelius’s final tone...
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
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...
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
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. Photo: BBC/Chris Christodoulou
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 plays Bach's Goldberg Variations. Photograph: Chris Christodoulou / BBC
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...
Mark Wigglesworth conducts the Proms Festival Orchestra at BBC Proms 2021 Photograph: Chris Christoudoulou / BBC
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...
Sir Mark Elder conducts the Hallé at BBC Proms 2021 Photograph: Chris Christoudoulou / BBC
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’...
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