BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Saint François d’Assise
Since its Paris premiere 25 years ago, Messiaen's “Saint François d'Assise” has gradually established a singular place in the operatic repertoire – its potency as a stage-work stemming almost entirely...
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Royal Scottish National Orchestra
The Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Stéphane Denève's annual excursion South of the Border produced an enterprising programme which, for the most part, played to this combination's considerable strengths.Given Denève's...
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Kaschey the Immortal … The Firebird
This Prom had a ‘compare and contrast’ feel about it in that the programme comprised two very different compositional takes on essentially the same Russian folk legend – one operatic...
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Quartet for the End of Time
“Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension”. Messiaen’s comment on the first performance of the Quartet for the End of Time, given in the German prisoner-of-war...
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Sea Sketches … Sea Pictures … Pathétique Symphony
Like Frank Bridge, the sea Grace Williams (1906-1977) evokes is one she had lived beside (and was to again), on the coast of Barry in Wales. Through a distanced, chilly...
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Berliner Philharmoniker/Rattle – 2 … Brahms & Shostakovich
The news that Sir Simon Rattle will be staying with the Berlin Philharmonic until at least 2020 may have come as a surprise given the oft-reported disaffection between conductor and...
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Berliner Philharmoniker/Rattle – 1 … Tristan & Turangalîla
Having missed last year’s Proms season, Sir Simon Rattle returned to Kensington Gore for the first of two Proms with Berliner Philharmoniker, as part of a short European tour which...
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Nishat Khan & BBC Singers
This late-night Prom began with the BBC Singers performing plainsong and music from the French Renaissance with improvisations by Nishat Khan on his sitar. The Singers seemed dominant of most...
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Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester – Nikolaj Znaider & Colin Davis
Just over 20 years old (it was founded in 1986 at the initiative of Claudio Abbado) the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester draws its players from as far afield as Russia and...
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Samuel Coleridge-Taylor & Ralph Vaughan Williams
The classical scholar A. E. Housman remains famous mainly for his poetry cycle “A Shropshire Lad”, a collection of short poems on themes of love and death in romantic evocations...
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Verdi Requiem
With pieces as popular as Verdi’s "Requiem" expectations of a performance are often unrealistically high and can lead to disappointment. With this piece in particular, the need for a vocally...
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Lang Lang & Marc Yu
Chinese pianist Lang Lang at age 26 remains something of a musical prodigy. Hearing at age two Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 on the soundtrack of the Tom & Jerry cartoon...
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Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra
Magnus Lindberg’s reputation as one of the leading composers of his generation and the most influential since Sibelius in his native Finland probably wasn’t the main reason most people turned...
New York Philharmonic/Maazel – 2
A capacity house, a great orchestra, no television lights and no clapping between movements. If conditions seemed ideal, the results were less so.It is not easy to say why, but...
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New York Philharmonic/Maazel – 1
This Prom programme seemed rather short measure in terms of length (barely 80 minutes of music). Yet, for all the perceived brevity there was lots of music for the packed...