BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Prom 15: BBC Symphony Orchestra/Josep Pons – Gaia Theory & Daphnis and Chloe … Ingrid Fliter plays Mozart K488
What is Gaia Theory? Well, it’s an assertion by the scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock that Planet Earth behaves as a self-regulating organism which tends to maintain surface conditions on...
PCM2: C. P. E. Bach with Rachel Podger & Friends
The second anniversary concert of the Proms Chamber Music season was directed by Rachel Podger, featuring a varied selection of music by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Johann Sebastian’s second son...
Prom 14: BBCNOW/Thierry Fischer – Ravel waltzes, Duruflé’s Requiem, and Emmanuel Pahud gives the world premiere of Simon Holt’s Morpheus Wakes
The first of four appearances this Proms season for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales was a distinctly French affair. Former Principal Conductor Thierry Fischer’s lightness of touch together with...
Prom 13: CBeebies [2/2]
Giant furry creatures greeted us outside the Royal Albert Hall as we arrived for the second CBeebies Prom. Inside, TV screens were festooned around the auditorium and CBeebies imagery mixed...
Prom 12: J. S. Bach’s St John Passion conducted by Roger Norrington with James Gilchrist as the Evangelist
Roger Norrington has been Principal Conductor of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra since 2011. It was formed shortly after the Second World War, but Zürcher Sing-Akademie is a comparatively new body,...
Prom 11: CBeebies [1/2]
The first of two CBeebies Proms landed at the Royal Albert Hall like The Beatles at Shea Stadium. Never have you heard such screams of delight from pre-schoolers and parents...
Prom 10: BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena with Tasmin Little – Walton, Moeran, Daedalus in Flight, Enigma Variations; David Horne Portrait
This was David Horne’s evening. We started in the Royal College of Music for a Composer Portrait (the first of the usual four this Proms season), a lively and informative...
Prom 9: LSO/Valery Gergiev with Barry Douglas – Brahms’s Piano Concerto 1 and Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass
With more rhythmic dynamism in one bar of each of these works than in the whole of the Pet Shop Boys’ Prom the previous evening, Valery Gergiev and his performers...
Prom 8: Neil Tennant/Chris Lowe – Pet Shop Boys – with Chrissie Hynde and Juliet Stevenson, including the world premiere of A Man from the Future
The Pet Shop Boys have been releasing beautifully laconic electro-pop music for close on thirty years, but having long mastered the art of the short pop song they are proving...
Prom 7: BBC Symphony Orchestra/Jiří Bělohlávek with Sarah Connolly, Michael Cox and Isabelle Faust – John Tavener’s Gnosis … Bartók … Shostakovich 10
This Prom had its surprises, not least because Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony was overshadowed by the first of two posthumous premieres from John Tavener (1944-2013) this season, and an outstanding performance...
Prom 6: Glyndebourne Festival Opera presents Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, with Kate Royal, Tara Erraught, Louise Alder and Franz Hawlata, conducted by Robin Ticciati
The Richard Jones brand is so well established in the opera world that even in truncated form its signature is decipherable – not bad for a staging of Der Rosenkavalier...
Prom 5: Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich/David Zinman with Julia Fischer – Till Eulenspiegel … Dvořák … Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony
Nearly twenty years on, and with many concerts and recordings, David Zinman has stepped down as Chief Conductor of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. This BBC Prom was his au revoir...
PCM1: Les Arts Florissants – Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concerts
The ‘Pièces de clavecin en concerts’ are the only surviving example of Rameau’s chamber music output, and were here performed in their entirety by members of Les Arts Florissants in...
Prom 4: World Orchestra for Peace/Valery Gergiev – Roxanna Panufnik, Richard Strauss, Mahler 6
Seeing as Valery Gergiev is a well-known apologist for Vladimir Putin, satire seemed to die another death – calling to mind Tom Lehrer’s words on Henry Kissinger being awarded the...
Prom 3: BBC Sport Prom – Gabby Logan presents Robin Cousins, Barry Davies, Anne Keothavong, Kenny Logan, Fabrice Muamba, Phil Tufnell & Anna Watkins; BBC Concert Orchestra/Rebecca Miller
The Proms went sporty with this hearty attempt to broaden the appeal of classical music. Good to see a large number of children in the audience – not least bearing...
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