BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Following on from the 2009 Prom celebrating MGM’s musicals, this 2011 Prom cast the net a little wider by taking a look at what other studios were doing at that...
For all the grandeur and status that the Royal Albert Hall brings to the BBC Proms, some music is better suited to the more intimate setting of Cadogan Hall. In...
A couple of generations ago, when size was everything, Britain’s amateur choral societies had two trusty stand-bys, Messiah and Elijah. Big shows both, each a knock-’em-flat epic and a good,...
A warm welcome from a packed Royal Albert Hall greeted Tonhalle Orchester Zürich for its, on the surface at least, straightforward BBC Prom: the Mozart and Beethoven being familiar fertile...
The BBC Proms brand works wonders for concerts: it is hard to imagine that Cadogan Hall would have been as full as it was for this Matinee without that P-word.Hildegard...
It could be argued that Mahler’s Sixth Symphony – “the only Sixth, despite the Pastoral”, according to Alban Berg – needs no companion and should stand alone. It is one...
So preposterous is the plot of Rinaldo that would-be directors have their work cut out in order to save one of Handel’s warmest scores from 21st-century derision. This tale of...
In his bicentenary year Liszt has inevitably been one of the focus points of the 2011 BBC Proms. To complement welcome renewals of the Faust and Dante symphonies Marc-André Hamelin...
The audience and the members of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester gave a very warm welcome to Sir Colin Davis at the start of this Prom who, although these days conducting...
The musicologist Richard Taruskin has directed particular ire at those who see fit to construct revisionist public personae for Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich and, as I perused my generously-filled Proms programme...
The third of this season’s four Composer Portraits was devoted to the music of Kevin Volans. Born in South Africa in 1949 Volans since 1994 has been an Irish citizen....
This was Emmanuel Pahud’s second visit to BBC Proms this year, following on from concerto performances of music by Elliott Carter and Marc-André Dalbavie. This recital’s theme was the 1940s,...
The forceful pizzicato chords which launch Britten’s remarkable set of Variations on a Theme by his teacher and mentor Frank Bridge were decidedly underwhelming, and heralded a performance which, for...
This second BBC Prom of Brahms with Emanuel Ax and Bernard Haitink, and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, opened with a well-orchestrated chant from some in the Arena: “From Arena...
Although only four in number, the Proms Saturday Matinees are among the most enterprising programmes of this year’s BBC Proms season. This one again featured the London Sinfonietta and the...
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