BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Boston Symphony Orchestra – 2
The penultimate night of the 2007 Proms season brought a second appearance from the Boston Symphony, evidently enjoying a period of renewal under James Levine. His first three years as...
Boston Symphony Orchestra – 1
Berlioz’s “The Damnation of Faust” – from ‘The Plains of Hungary’ to the Jaws of Hell (which Faust descends to thanks to Méphistophélès’s deception) and the Gates of Heaven (through...
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
Riccardo Chailly strode vigorously up to the podium, purposive and thickly bearded. Facing the bust of Sir Henry Wood, the founder-conductor of the Proms, he looked every inch his re-incarnation.The...
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra – 2
It says something for the perception we may have of the Vienna Philharmonic that if it plays Bartók, let alone Ligeti, that part of an eyebrow is raised in surprise....
BBC Singers & John Scott
Britten’s distinguished setting of W. H. Auden’s highly moving words – an extraordinary mix of private confession and public declaration – was, here, a gentle, rather subdued affair. This intimate...
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra – 1
Despite the best efforts of one union to bring London Underground to a complete halt by staging a three-day strike, an enthusiastic capacity audience greeted the Vienna Philharmonic. There is...
Angela Hewitt
J. S. Bach’s Partitas are often referred to as a collection of dance movements – and are Bach’s first published works, apparently. Should we expect them to be danced to?Angela...
San Francisco Symphony – 2
Whilst I was in New York for the Kirov 'Ring' cycle at the Metropolitan Opera, I met a Jewish lady who stated that she did not care much for Mahler...
San Francisco Symphony – 1
A packed house greeted our friends from across the pond for this appetising programme, which, on the whole, did not disappoint.Charles Ives was a part-time composer; his ‘day job’ was...
Britten & Auden
As if saving the best till last, the Proms Saturday Matinee series came to a brilliantly conceived end with this extraordinary snapshot of Benjamin Britten before he was 30. There...
Two’s Company
Although there are notable works for oboe and percussion by Birtwistle and Xenakis, Thea Musgrave’s Two’s Company – the last of the BBC’s commissions for Proms 2007 – could well...
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra – 2
Two very different symphonies, generously coupled here in the second of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’s two Proms, that seek reconciliation; Honegger through a suggestion of paradise after violent strife...
Ophelia Dances … Songs for Sue … Book of Hours
In his second, most welcome, Prom of the season, Oliver Knussen conducted the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (of which he is artist in association) in an exquisite late-night programme, including...
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra – 1
What if BMW ‘did’ orchestras? Of course they would be sleek and elegant and designed for maximum efficiency. They would happily traverse melodious peaks as well as trip lightly over...
LSO/Gergiev
Coming so soon after Claudio Abbado’s display of perfectionism (Lucerne Festival Orchestra Mahler 3), it was as well to be reminded that there’s more than one way to skin a...
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