Farewell. This was an essential part of Sir Simon Rattle’s second Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a final farewell to his tenure at the London Symphony Orchestra…
Tag: BBC Proms
Late-night Bach at the Proms: Iestyn Davies and the English Concert
In an article in the Daily Telegraph, published just prior to this late-night Prom with The English Concert led by director Kristian Bezuidenhout from the harpsichord, countertenor Iestyn Davies tells…
Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO introduce Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri to the Proms
“It’s the great masterpiece you’ve never heard.” So declared Sir Simon Rattle when he introduced Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri to the London Symphony Orchestra in 2015, in a…
György Kurtág’s Endgame receives its UK premiere at the Proms
What sort of music might capture the enigmatic nihilism of Samuel Beckett’s Endgame? The play’s fragmentation and dislocation? Its seemingly pointless patterns of repetition and variation? György Kurtág’s aphoristic stutters,…
Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre gets its Proms premiere with Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra
The Budapest Festival Orchestra are a crack ensemble. And under Iván Fischer they can do everything that is possible – and nearly anything impossible, too. They brought with them to…
Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey inspires magnificent performances of two Ligeti masterpieces at the Proms
Film music has long been a theme of classical concerts – although this sold-out concert given by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner was just a little different. It…
Barry Kosky’s production of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites travels from Glyndebourne to the Proms
Francis Poulenc’s opera Dialogues des Carmélites retells the true story of the Martyrs of Compiègne who were executed on 17th July 1794, during the French Revolution, for refusing to comply…
Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha brings an iridescent glow to Strauss’s Four Last Songs at the Proms
Copland, Hindemith and Strauss are not obvious bedfellows. However, the focus on the 1940s from either side of the Atlantic made perfect sense for this annual Prom appearance of the…
Thrilling performances of Rachmaninov and Walton at the Proms
There’s a danger that a little-known work not previously performed in the UK may be all too quickly erased from memory when familiar works grab the listener’s attention, especially when…
Mark Elder and the Hallé: a superlative Russian Prom of gripping power and intensity
Longevity clearly matters. I do not mean in the age of its conductors, although this sometimes is important, but by the length of time they have spent with their orchestras.…