BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

Czech Philharmonic
The last major international orchestra to this year’s Proms (Les Arts Florissants and William Christie notwithstanding) was the Czech Philharmonic. It made its first visit 35 years ago, in 1969,...
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
An interesting programme mixing Kaija Saariaho’s large-scale symphonic piece Orion, inspired by the myth and the constellation of Orion in a night-time sky, and Bartók’s operatic masterpiece telling the tale...
Berliner Philharmoniker 2
For their second programme, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic (as we're not supposed to call it) presented a typically astute pairing, unimaginable in the Karajan era though by...
Chamber Music No.8
The Concertino began well. Rolf Hind thumped out the blunt, bare opening declaration authoritatively. Martin Owen’s horn answered him sweetly, gravely and consistently. Hind, meanwhile, began to scamper pointlessly and...
Berliner Philharmoniker 1
If concert programmes had sub-titles in the way now common to every public body – you know the sort of thing, the dust-cart with a sign saying "Working for a...
Staatskapelle Dresden 2
It took until the Dvořák symphony for something truly memorable, not just of this concert but of Staatskapelle Dresden’s two Proms. The Haydn, altogether more attentive and purposeful than the...
Sur Incises
The opportunity to 'bring South' performances from the Edinburgh Festival paid off handsomely in this Prom pairing of major works by composers who were sometime colleagues. A veritable showcase, too,...
Sneaker Wave
The promenaders stayed away in droves for this one. I don’t quite understand why. It was a strange but pleasing programme that included a first performance and a couple of...
A Final Last Night
Leonard Slatkin reflects on his last Last Night of the PromsIt is hard to believe that almost four years as chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra have passed. To...
Pictures at the Proms
The encore, “Happy Birthday to You”, summoned by leader Stephen Bryant was a nice tribute to Leonard Slatkin at, this, his 60th-birthday concert, given on the day itself. The party...
Vespers of 1610
This performance of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, in Robert King’s own performing edition, was a marvel of compromise between coping with an inappropriate acoustic (given the size of the forces...
Mutter & Previn
Odd when you think of it: André Previn has not appeared at the Proms since a 1987 concert with the Royal Philharmonic; then its back to 1974 – the era...
Australian Youth Orchestra
The Australian Youth Orchestra gave an excellent account of itself, allied to an authoritative contribution from Lawrence Foster. He clearly won the players’ trust as a guide – perhaps, even,...
Chamber Music No.7
Having featured his Fourth Symphony earlier this Proms season, it was fitting that Ives's other culminating work be included too. And who better to perform the Concord Sonata than Pierre-Laurent...
Khamma
The wide-ranging remit of the Proms these days makes it easy to ignore a concert of such focused and unassumingly logical programming as this one. Two of the works are...
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