BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Proms 2011 – Rachmaninov/Noseda [Spring … Vocalise … The Bells]
On paper this Prom was enticing: the rarely performed Vesna (Spring), the Russian Songs, and a powerful choral symphony, all by Rachmaninov, one of the great tunesmith composers of music...
Proms 2011 – CBSO/Nelsons – Don Juan … Alexander Nevsky … Midori plays Walton
It’s not often that one is invited to listen to Dance of the Seven Veils immediately after the roof-raising conclusion of Alexander Nevsky. Of course, behind the drawn curtains of...
Proms 2011 – Horrible Histories
I had no idea what to expect from the latest BBC-branded Prom, morphing the free family Prom into a CBBC spectacular based on Horrible Histories. I've caught a couple of...
Proms 2011 – BBCSO/Knussen – Pacific 231 … Der Wein … Inverno in-ver … La mer
This BBC Prom went through various changes, but the resulting programme was still a cohesive and intriguing one. A brace of Honegger’s most familiar orchestral pieces provided contrast in itself...
Proms 2011 – BBCNOW/Fischer & Pahud: Two Beethoven Symphonies & Two Flute Concertos
Thierry Fischer’s second Prom was a flute sandwich, with Emmanuel Pahud’s golden flute in two 21st-century concertos as the opulent filling, and the musical equivalent of echt-pumpernickel in the shape...
Proms 2011 – World Routes Academy
When it launched last year, the ingenious BBC Radio 3 World Routes Academy flung together astounding partnerships of mentor and mentee. At last year’s equivalent Prom, I had the pleasure...
Proms 2011 – The Firebird … Dusapin Portrait
Following his recent Proms debut, Pascal Dusapin had little time to wait before the follow-up. Hinterland (2009) is the sixth in a sequence of seven (to date) string quartets with...
Proms 2011 – Jurowski & Bavouzet [Dances of Galánta … A Faust Symphony … Bartók]
The pairing of Kodály with his better-known compatriot and friend Bartók was an unsurprising line-up for the first’s half of the London Philharmonic’s Hungarian Prom. However, as the success of...
Proms 2011 – Mahler 9/Norrington
And so it was goodnight from them, and goodnight from him. The ‘them’ were the members of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony orchestra; the ‘him’ was Roger Norrington. This BBC Prom...
Proms 2011 – Elias String Quartet & Julian Bliss [Sally Beamish world premiere]
In a generous programme running more than a third of its specified length of an hour, the Elias String Quartet included the world premiere of Sally Beamish’s third string quartet....
Proms 2011 – Verdi’s Requiem/Bychkov
Of the four most-performed musical Requiem masses – those by Mozart, Verdi, Fauré and Britten – Verdi’s covers the extremes of dread, human supplication and cosmic judgment. There is a...
Proms 2011 – Human Planet Prom (2)
This Sunday morning concert was a repeat performance of the previous night's Human Planet Prom and explored three activities of the BBC: the TV show Human Planet (which was screened...
Proms 2011 – Human Planet Prom (1)
After what me might call BBC-branded Proms, usually aimed at the younger range of the spectrum – Blue Peter, Doctor Who and the Evolution Prom – the 2011 season turned...
Proms 2011 – BBC Philharmonic/Juanjo Mena with Steven Osborne [Debussy, Falla & Ravel]
This was a sound-bite concert at times, Debussy’s Images pour orchestre unhelpfully split asunder. Much better to have started with Alborada del gracioso, then played the Falla, and ended the...
Proms 2011 – Hallé/Mark Elder with András Schiff [Sibelius, Bartók & Janáček]
The lighter side of Sibelius’s musical art opened this BBC Prom. Mark Elder and his Hallé musicians breathed revealing life into the second set of Scènes historiques, depicting a hunt,...
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