BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Prom 66: Berliner Philharmoniker/Simon Rattle (2) – Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Mark Padmore, Christian Gerhaher, Camilla Tilling & Magdalena Kožená; directed by Peter Sellars
Peter Sellars’s staging of J. S. Bach’s St Matthew Passion in conjunction with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle was first seen in 2010, and in the context of Proms...
PSM4: Harrison Birtwistle – Verses for Ensembles, Dinah and Nick’s Love Song, Meridian – Birmingham Contemporary Music Group/Oliver Knussen with Hilary Summers and Exaudi
After the previous Peter Maxwell Davies portrait (PSM3), this last of the season Proms Saturday Matinee was devoted to Harrison Birtwistle – three works written consecutively around the turn of...
Prom 65: Paloma Faith – A Perfect Contradiction – with Ty Taylor, Urban Voices Collective & Guy Barker Orchestra
Continuing the seemingly inexhaustible drive to change the focus of "the world's greatest classical music festival", this late-night Prom introduced three-times BRIT Award-nominee Paloma Faith. It was an eclectic mix...
Prom 64: Berliner Philharmoniker/Simon Rattle (1) – Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances & Stravinsky’s The Firebird
In their first Prom since 2012 (coincidentally also No.64) the Berliner Philharmoniker and Simon Rattle returned to the Royal Albert Hall to god-like veneration. A capacity audience applauded rapturously, welcoming...
Prom 63: BBC Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop with Timothy McAllister – John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine & Saxophone Concerto … Mahler 1
John Adams’s Short Ride in a Fast Machine finally received its first outing in a Prom, having previously been removed from the schedules at short notice in the 1997 and...
Prom 62: Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra/Roger Norrington – Beethoven 8, Roméo et Juliette, Dvořák’s New World Symphony
The 80-year-old Sir Roger Norrington was back at the Proms, as conductor laureate, with his old flame from Stuttgart, the orchestra with which he grafted ‘period’ manners onto modern instruments,...
Prom 61: Singapore Symphony Orchestra/Lan Shui – Glinka & Rachmaninov – Andreas Haefliger plays Zhou Long’s Postures
The Singapore Symphony Orchestra (boasting a large number of nationalities amongst its members) and its music director since 1997, Lan Shui, provided a thought-provoking Prom crowned by an impressive performance...
Prom 60: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Charles Dutoit – Roman Carnival, Roman Festivals, Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome – Danny Driver plays Walton
When in Rome... Charles Dutoit and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (now a magnetic attraction in London’s concert life) opened this Prom with Berlioz’s colourful Roman Carnival (its music rescued from...
PCM7: Benjamin Grosvenor plays Chopin, Mompou, Ravel, Judith Weir and Gounod/Liszt
Benjamin Grosvenor opened this lunchtime Prom with Chopin’s G minor Ballade, immediately commanding and then tender, but becoming somewhat literal at times if with an impressive if angular cutting-loose when...
Prom 59: Richard Strauss’s Elektra with Christine Goerke, Gun-Brit Barkmin, Felicity Palmer & Johan Reuter; Semyon Bychkov conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra
What a weekend it has been for musical high Romanticism at the Proms – of a notably deathly hue – comprising not just the Strauss operatic double bill of Salome...
Prom 58 – Richard Strauss’s Salome with Nina Stemme, Doris Soffel, Samuel Youn & Burkhard Ulrich; Donald Runnicles conducts the Orchestra of Deutsche Oper Berlin
This Proms weekend sees the ultimate Richard Strauss ‘double-whammy’ with Salome and Elektra given on consecutive nights (not by the same artists!): in the unlikely event of these operas being...
PSM3: Peter Maxwell Davies – Linguae ignis, Revelation and Fall, A Mirror of Whitening Light – London Sinfonietta/Sian Edwards with Tim Gill and Rebecca Bottone
The third Proms Saturday Matinee of the 2014 Season focussed on the music of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies – who, having completed his decade-long tenure of Master of the Queen’s...
Prom 57: Daniel Harding conducts Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony – Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Harding will largely be known to London and British audiences through his conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. Here, however, he masterfully steered the ensemble of which he is currently...
Prom 56: London Philharmonic/Vladimir Jurowski with Alexander Toradze – The Planets, Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces, Scriabin’s Prometheus
Though he has laudably championed contemporary British composers with the London Philharmonic, Vladimir Jurowski doesn’t have much of a track record in what is usually described as “English” music –...
Prom 55: Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra/Myung-Whun Chung with sheng-player Wu Wei – La mer, Šu, Pathétique Symphony
Under its music director Myung-Whun Chung, over the past ten years the Seoul Philharmonic has successfully been buffing up its international reputation as the Far East’s best orchestra; surprisingly, though,...
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