Hungarian folk tunes run through the veins of Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, while Gypsy rhythms set their pulses dancing. This concert – a true celebration of Hungary’s national music – traces the development of folk songs and dance, from their colourful, rough-hewn originals into virtuosic concert-hall reimaginings by Liszt, Brahms and Sarasate. In the second half comes Brahms’s dramatic First Symphony, whose darkness and drama eventually give way to an ending of transcendent musical triumph.“A masterclass. Oh, that concerts could all be like this!” (The Spectator) PROGRAM Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 1 & 3; Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 1 & 11, Symphony No 1; Sarasate: Zigeunerweisen
BBC Proms 2018: Paavo Järvi conducts a Nordic Night
A concert with a Nordic flavour from Paavo Järvi and the Estonian Festival Orchestra (making its Proms debut) pairs music by Grieg and Sibelius with Estonia’s own national composer, Arvo Pärt. Celebrated Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili performs one of the great Romantic piano concertos. Beloved for ist generous melodies and dramatic gestures, Grieg’s concerto is matched for sonic drama by Sibelius’s stirring Fifth Symphony. Arvo Pärt’s eclectic Third Symphony, with ist echoes of Renaissance polyphony and Orthodox chant, opens the concert.“One of this season’s special Proms!” (The Guardian) PROGRAM Pärt: Symphony No 3; Grieg: Piano Concerto; Jean Sibelius: Symphony No 5
BBC Proms 2018: Canellakis conducts Russian Classics
Conductor Karina Canellakis returned with the BBC Symphony Orchestra after her triumphant 2017 Proms debut. Two 20th-century Russian masterpieces led the bill – the exhilarating Symphonic Dances by Rachmaninov and Shostakovich’s much-loved First Cello Concerto, where Canellakis was joined by another young American star, soloist Alisa Weilerstein. The programme kicked off with Beethoven’s forceful Overture Coriolan, which Canellakis describes as a ‘punch in the face’, and a third young American, composer Andrew Norman, completed the programme with the UK premiere of his new work Spiral – “It could spice up any programme!” (The Guardian) PROGRAM Beethoven: Overture ‘Coriolan’; Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No 1; Norman: Spiral; Rachmaninov: Symphonic Dances
BBC Proms 2017: Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla conducts Beethoven, Stravinsky, Barry
Rising star conductor Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla returns with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to the Royal Albert Hall, setting Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony against a world premiere by Gerald Barry. Leila Josefowicz excels as the soloist in Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla is the youngest female conductor to take over one of the world’s leading orchestras: Together with the CBSO, the Music Director from Lithuania – “on the podium a combination of flamboyance and steely poise” (Financial Times) – explores the theme of political and artistic freedom in their concert: Beethoven’s Overture “Leonore” No. 3 celebrates the triumph of truth over tyranny in music of radiant beauty while his Fifth rewrites the rules for the Classical symphony. Allan Clayton’s rendition of Canada, composed by Gerald Barry, completes the programme. “Irresistible!” (The Guardian) PROGRAM Beethoven: Overture ‘Leonore’ No. 3, Symphony No. 5; Stravinsky: Violin Concerto; Barry: Canada
BBC Proms 2017: Barenboim conducts Birtwistle and Elgar
Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin, returning heroes of the BBC Proms, give the UK premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Deep Time at the Royal Albert Hall in London. They contrast the contemporary piece with the Second Symphony by Edward Elgar, thus reaffirming their special relationship with the revered British composer: “The Staatskapelle, driven by Barenboim, has become probably the world’s best Elgar-orchestra.” (Die Welt) They earn praise for playing his Opus 63, which is considered one of the greatest English symphonies, “with heroic sweep and heart-melting beauty” (Spectator) and “magnificent energy” (Daily Telegraph). Despite a five minute blackout during the recording of the performance, this unique concert of Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin was captured in its entirety, with beauty shots compensating for any discontinuity. PROGRAM Elgar Symphony No.2; Birtwistle: Deep Time
BBC Proms 2017: First Night of the Proms
The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Igor Levit, conducted by Edward Gardner, follow the tried formula for the First Night of the Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall, combining an exciting new work by a British artist, Tom Coult’s St John’s Dance, with a repertoire classic – Beethoven’s 3rd Piano Concerto – and a topical piece such as John Adams’s Harmonium, marking the composer’s 70th birthday. Igor Levit performs Beethoven “with rare grace and intimacy” (The Independent). For the grand finale, John Adams’s armonium receives “a glowing performance” (The Daily Telegraph) by ist gargantuan chorus: alongside the BBC SO under Edward Gardner, seven choirs, among them the
BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC Proms Youth Choir, make up the choral forces, doing “a formidable job” in “this stratospherically high, rhythmically difficult, super-exposed
job.” (The Observer) PROGRAM Adams: Harmonium; Beethoven: Piano Concerto No.3; Coult: St John’s Dance
BBC Proms 2016: WEDO and Barenboim perform Widmann, Liszt, Wagner
Proms don’t come more stellar than this!”, raved The Independent about the WEDO’s performance at the BBC Proms. The concert opens with a rendition of Jörg Widmann’s overture Con brio. Martha Argerich continues with an “unforgettable performance” of Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, dazzling with her “frighteningly precise” playing (The Guardian). As encore the two childhood friends join forces at the piano for a four handed rendition of Schubert’s Rondo in A “that for 12 minutes provides a glimpse of paradise” (The Standart) holding “6000 people spellbound” (The Times). Further repertoire includes Wagner’s Overtures to Tannhäuser and Meistersinger; Dawn, Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March from Götterdämmerung et al.
Simon Rattle conducts Sibelius
For the recent major London residency of the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Barbican Sir Simon Rattle has chosen music that means most to him, the complete cycle of Sibelius symphonies in honour of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth: “Sibelius is so concentrated and exact. With Sibelius you feel that if one drop touches your skin it would burn right through the bone.“ “High-voltage Sibelius kicks off Rattle’s London Residency” raved the press consequently over the opening of the cycle. The Telegraph agreed: “Sibelius’s symphonies sounded thrillingly new in the hands of Simon Rattle and the Berlin Phil”, in a way, that “a great orchestra and conductor can make familiar music seem the hottest thing in town”.
BBC Proms 2016 – Gergiev, Abduraimov and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra
Valery Gergiev and his Munich Philharmonic Orchestra open with Ravel’s hypnotic Boléro and close with a suite from Richard Strauss’s waltz-filled opera Der Rosenkavalier. In between, Galina Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No. 3 pleads for redemption on raw brass and winds. Composed in 1983 it is based on the texts of the 11th-century German monk and musician Hermanus Contractus and includes solo recitatives performed by Alexei Petrenko. Young Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov is the soloist in Rachmaninov’s soaring Piano Concerto No. 3. “Abduraimov ist phenomenal!“ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). “He should be on any must-hear list.” (The New York Times).
John Wilson at the BBC Proms – George & Ira Gershwin Rediscovered
Once again John Wilson and his orchestra, “combining swing authenticity with the poise of a deluxe concert Orchestra” (The Times), return to the Royal Albert Hall with a performance counted among “the star attractions” (Financial Times) of this year’s Proms. Their concert, accompanied by three of the “greatest West-End musical theatre stars” Louise Dearman, Matthew Ford and Julian Ovenden (also known from Downtown Abbey), pays tribute to George and Ira Gershwin, one of America’s most celebrated song-writing duos. Divided between film score theme tunes, dance numbers, and songs from musicals such as the favourites “Embraceable You”, “Love Walked In”, “Fascinatin’ Rhythm” and the ballet music from the 1951 film An American in Paris, “this glorious concert” (The Times) just “dazzled on every level.”