BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Prom 23: Tallis Fantasia … These Things Shall Be … Belshazzar’s Feast
The tranquillity of the Royal Albert Hall was a welcome respite from Olympics frenzy. Choral music and two orchestral works proved inspired programming. The Hall’s Gallery and boxes were put...
Prom 22: Noseda conducts Mozart, Knussen & Mahler
The BBC Philharmonic was back for its second Prom, this time with former Principal Conductor, now Laureate, Gianandrea Noseda – both were on the typically high-energy form that distinguishes their...
PCM3: La Tarantella – L’Arpeggiata & Christina Pluhar
Little Miss Muffet and other arachnophobes would have steered clear of Cadogan Hall for this Proms Chamber Music recital, for the ensemble L’Arpeggiata was celebrating the tarantella – the music...
Prom 21: Aldeburgh World Orchestra/Mark Elder – At the Speed of Stillness … The Rite of Spring
On an initial perusal of the BBC Proms Guide all those Launch weeks ago, this was one of the standout concerts of the 2012 season, certainly in terms of a...
Prom 20: Musical Marvels – The Wallace & Gromit Prom
In my review of the first Doctor Who Prom on the equivalent Sunday four years ago, I ended by suggesting there should be a Wallace & Gromit Prom. Here we...
Prom 19: Dausgaard & Müller-Schott – Ixion … Incontri … Pathétique Symphony
Three years ago Thomas Dausgaard caused quite a stir with the UK premiere of Rued Langgaard’s Music of the Spheres. Its transcendent vision represents one extreme of its composer’s thinking:...
PSM2: Le 24 Violons du Roy/Roger Norrington
A fascinating history lesson: a recreation of the world’s first professional orchestra, some 250 years after it shut up shop in pre-revolutionary France. The name – Le 24 Violons du...
Prom 18: Barenboim conducts Beethoven’s Choral Symphony
The first false-start of the Olympics triggered shortly after 6.30. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra rose, the audience applauding, to greet Daniel Barenboim, who duly failed to appear. Much nervous laughter...
Prom 17: Late-night Beethoven & Boulez – Le marteau sans maître
Coming just before the final concert in its Beethoven symphony cycle, it was fitting that this late-night Prom from members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra focussed on the two composers...
Prom 16: In the South … La mer … Joanna MacGregor plays Hugh Wood
Delete Thierry Fischer (ill); insert Ryan Wigglesworth (available). With apologies to Robert Browning: oh to be in Italy now that the Olympics are here! Elgar was there, in Alassio, during...
Prom 15: Bělohlávek conducts From My Life & Gluzman plays Prokofiev
There was an elegant logic to this Czech-oriented programme including Georg Szell’s orchestration of Smetana, which the great conductor regularly used as a calling-card, probably to test the mettle of...
Prom 14: Late-night Kronos Quartet
As Andrew McGregor mentioned in his brief spoken introduction, the wonder is that this was the Kronos Quartet’s debut at the Proms – 40 years old next year (with a...
Prom 13: Barenboim conducts Beethoven & Boulez (4)
With the Olympics nearly upon us and Universal’s marketing campaign for “Beethoven For All” reaching the parts that classical PR rarely touches (Sky News for example), the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra...
Prom 12: Barenboim conducts Beethoven & Boulez (3)
A tabloid might run the headline: “Interval Chaos at BBC Proms”. Of course, Classical Source is above such tittle-tattle, but more anon on this. Your correspondent only just made this...
PCM2: Tenebrae [Gibbons, Philips & Martland]
The theme connecting this second recital in the Proms Chamber Music series was London Town, bearing in mind the opening of the Olympics later this same week. The link was...
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