BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Prom 11: Berlioz’s The Trojans – Royal Opera/Pappano
On consecutive Sundays, BBC Proms audiences have been treated to two of France’s greatest operas in unforgettable concert performances. While Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande was a memorable event, this performance...
Prom 10: Barenboim conducts Beethoven & Boulez (2)
Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra was significantly larger for this second concert in their Beethoven symphony cycle (six double basses for No.4, eight for the ‘Eroica’), flagging up their romantic...
PSM1: J. S. Bach’s The Art of Fugue/Mahan Esfahani
You could be forgiven for thinking that late Beethoven is a walk in the park compared to the uncompromising abstraction of the complete Art of Fugue (or as complete as...
Prom 9: Barenboim conducts Beethoven & Boulez (1)
It says something for the combined pulling power of the BBC Proms, Beethoven, Pierre Boulez and Daniel Barenboim that the German composer’s first two symphonies (which perhaps lack the cachet...
Prom 8: Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus
Lots of room in the Arena and surprisingly a lot of spare seats for this first Proms outing of Handel's great oratorio, here given by a fine cast of singers...
Prom 7: Water & Royal Fireworks Music – Hervé Niquet
Such was the level of royal approval for Handel’s three Suites of Water Music composed for a concert on the River Thames, that George I requested them played three times...
Prom 6: Sakari Oramo Conducts Endless Forms
César Cui has a lot to answer for. His critical response to Rachmaninov’s First Symphony was devastating: “If there was a Conservatory in Hell, and one of its talented pupils...
Prom 5: Also sprach Zarathustra … Laterna magica
Also sprach Zarathustra is a great way to start a concert, here known as Prom 5. The organ pedal, bass drum, high trumpets and timpani salvos promise much. It’s almost...
Prom 4: John Adams Conducts City Noir
After the exigencies of the opening weekend – the English first night, then major stage-works in My Fair Lady and Pelléas et Mélisande – Prom 4 fulfilled the traditional mix...
PCM1: Alice Coote & Julius Drake – French Song
A selection of French songs from Alice Coote began a new season of Proms Chamber Music recitals for 2012, concentrating primarily on centenary composer Debussy. However the British mezzo avoided...
Prom 3: Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande
It is barely a year since an earlier concert performance of Pelléas et Mélisande (given at the Barbican Centre by Louis Langrée and forces from the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées) demonstrated...
Prom 2: Lerner & Loewe’s My Fair Lady
1956, opens on Broadway. 1958, hits London’s West End. 1964, Lerner & Loewe’s musical is made into a starry film directed by George Cukor with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison....
Prom 1: First Night [Sea Drift, Coronation Ode]
A chinwag of conductors (one imagines some lively chat backstage) – two with the Queen’s sword already on the shoulder and two who are knights-in-waiting – launched BBC Proms 2012,...
Proms 2011 – The Last Night: Lang Lang, Miraculous Mandarin, Jenny Agutter, Susan Bullock, Edward Gardner, Rule Britannia!
The 117th-Season of BBC Proms has broken box-office records and the Last Night’s opening music paid tribute to the Promenaders. Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (Master of the Queen’s Music) was...
Proms 2011 – Weber’s Der Freischütz with Berlioz’s recits/Andrew Kennedy, Gidon Saks, Sophie Karthäuser, John Eliot Gardiner
The heralded interventions by Berlioz may have cornered the pre-Prom chatter, but Der Freischütz is still Weber’s show. The original version (1821) helped elevate German Romanticism to the status of...
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