BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

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Prom 47: BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sakari Oramo – Tapiola, Beast Sampler, Beethoven 7 – Stephen Farr plays Jón Leifs’s Organ Concerto
Tapiola was carried forward from the final concert of the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s 2014-15 Season at the Barbican Centre when Sakari Oramo completed his superb traversal of Carl Nielsen’s Six...
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Prom 46: Danish National Symphony Orchestra/Fabio Luisi – Nielsen’s Helios, Hymnus amoris & Four Temperaments – Nikolaj Znaider plays Brahms’s Violin Concerto
If Fabio Luisi’s becoming Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (in two season’s time) was other than a coincidence following the untimely death of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos,...
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Prom 45: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Charles Dutoit – Debussy’s Petite Suite & Shostakovich 15 – Elisabeth Leonskaja plays Mozart K482
A well-planned Prom, if with variable results. The opening item, Henri Bűsser’s Ravel-esque orchestration of Debussy’s Petite Suite (piano/four hands), was apparently last given at the Proms 88 years ago....
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Prom 44: West-Eastern Divan Orchestra/Daniel Barenboim – Schoenberg, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky
Apart from the deserved admiration and goodwill they inspire, the members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra must command enormous respect from serious music-lovers for their far from populist programming. Here...
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Prom 43: Sibelius Symphony Cycle (3) – BBC Symphony Orchestra/Osmo Vänskä – Symphonies 5, 6 & 7
Although Sibelius was not the sort of creative figure extensively promoted by William Glock (the innovative BBC Controller of Music and Proms planner of the 1960s and early-1970s), his works...
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PCM5: A Sondheim Cabaret – Kitty Whately, Jamie Parker, Siân Phillips, Anthony Brown & Richard Sisson
This lunchtime Prom tenuously linked to Stephen Sondheim’s 85th-birthday (which was back in March) was excellent in showcasing the composer and lyricist’s artistry as a song-smith but severely lacking in...
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Prom 42: Sibelius Symphony Cycle (2) – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ilan Volkov – Symphonies 3 & 4 and Violin Concerto with Julian Rachlin; world premiere of Michael Finnissy’s Janne and Finnissy Composer Portrait
Ilan Volkov took up the baton for the second instalment of the Proms’ cycle of Sibelius’s Symphonies for the composer’s 150th-anniversary. They were generally cogent readings in which he and...
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Prom 41: Sherlock Holmes – A Musical Mind – Matthew Sweet, Mark Gatiss, Christine Rice, Jack Liebeck; Stile Antico; BBC Concert Orchestra/Barry Wordsworth
From Sherlock Holmes Baffled (1900) to Mr Holmes (2015), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s (fictitious) detective continues to draw cinema audiences and Benedict Cumberbatch’s impersonation dominates television screens globally.So it was...
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Prom 40: Sibelius Symphony Cycle (1) – BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard – Symphonies 1 & 2 and Finlandia
The first of three consecutive Proms evenings devoted to Sibelius’s Seven Symphonies, and more or less identical in their programming to the trio of back-to-back concerts that Simon Rattle and...
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PSM3: Apollo’s Fire & Jeannette Sorrell with Alina Ibragimova – J. S. & C. P. E. Bach, Telemann and Vivaldi
Perhaps not the most burning question of our time, but I did wonder as I climbed the stairs to Cadogan Hall’s stalls for this third Proms Saturday Matinee (and the...
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Prom 39: Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail from Glyndebourne – Edgaras Montvidas, Sally Matthews, Mari Eriksmoen, Brenden Patrick Gunnell, Tobias Kehrer & Franck Saurel; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment/Robin Ticciati
Later this year David Pickard will have moved from the directorship of Glyndebourne to that of the BBC Proms, so the Sussex-based company’s annual decamping to the Royal Albert Hall...
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Prom 38: BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena – John Foulds’s Three Mantras and – with Steven Osborne & Valérie Hartmann-Claverie – Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony
What a triumph for the brass! Considerable passages within both these works are driven by this section, and the brass-players of the BBC Philharmonic brought to bear an exemplary variety.In...
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Prom 37: Late Night with … BBC Radio 1Xtra – Wretch 32, Stormzy, Lethal Bizzle, Chip, Little Simz, Krept & Konan, Fekky; Metropole Orkest/Jules Buckley
The fusion between the European Classical Music tradition and the contemporary Urban Music genres of Hip Hop, Rap and Grime promised a curious and unpredictable partnering. It would be reasonable...
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Prom 36: BBC Symphony Orchestra/François-Xavier Roth – Boulez’s Figures – Doubles – Prismes … Ravel/Boulez Frontispice … Stravinsky’s The Firebird – Marc-André Hamelin plays Ravel’s Left-Hand Piano Concerto
This was a Pierre Boulez Prom – as composer and arranger and then through music closely associated with him. Now aged 90 and no longer conducting, he needs his disciples...
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Prom 35: Story of Swing – Clare Teal, Jamie Davis, Elaine Delmar & Clarke Peters; The Promunards; Guy Barker Big Band; Winston Rollins Big Band
It made sense to take swing music as the focus for this year’s jazz-centred Prom. Not only is it a genre immediately identifiable in terms of sound and rhythm, but...