If one places in context where this program of Handel and Glass took place – the old and the contemporary – its historic setting seemed to have a real sense…
Tag: BBC Proms
Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis at the Proms
John Eliot Gardiner surely named his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique with an intent that was thrillingly in evidence during this performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, the instrumentalists being joined by…
Chineke! Voices and Orchestra at the Proms
Very much a concert of two (unequal) halves, I am afraid. The first Proms performance of George Walker’s 1995 Lilacs promised and delivered much. However, the following performance of Beethoven’s…
A stirring The Dream of Gerontius from Edward Gardner and the LPO at the Proms
The final weeks of this Proms festival are serving up some terrific big choral works and, sitting in the stalls before this performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, how wonderful…
Stateliness and sincerity from John Butt and the OAE: Bach’s Mass in B Minor at the Proms
Why Bach wrote the B minor Mass is a puzzle that keeps musicologists occupied. How to perform it today is a probably unresolvable question for practitioners. The Mass began life…
Prom 49: An overwhelming ‘Resurrection’ Symphony from Sir Simon Rattle
There can be no better venue in London for a performance of Mahler’s ’Resurrection’ Symphony than the Royal Albert Hall. Those fortunate enough to acquire tickets for this sell-out concert…
Prom 43: Handel’s Solomon
Some of Handel’s oratorios aspire to theatre; some have had theatre thrust upon them. Solomon has neither sustained drama nor a coherent narrative, but it does have some fantastic music…
Prom 41: Superb Nielsen from Thomas Dausgaard and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
“I think many people are in for pleasant surprises as they get to know Nielsen: his rough charm, his swing, his drive, his rhythmic surprises, his strange power of harmonic…
Prom 31: Outstanding Wagner, but an uneven Four Last Songs, from Daniele Rustioni and the Ulster Orchestra.
The Proms is the only time many orchestras around the United Kingdom can get to perform in London – and, conversely, the only opportunity critics and audiences have of hearing…
Prom 24: Mendelssohnian playfulness and Mahlerian darkness
A premiere, an outstanding debut and a distinctive symphonic account formed a programme given by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under its principal conductor Ryan Bancroft in the third…