The World's Greatest Classical Music Festival. The BBC Proms is a classical music festival held every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and in recent years has explored an innovative series of Proms around the UK with concerts in all four nations. Its aim: to bring the best in classical music to the widest possible audience, which remains true to founder-conductor Henry Wood’s original vision in 1895. Whether you are a classical connoisseur or think classical music isn’t for you, there is something for everyone in the eight-week stretch of concerts.
Showing Season 68 of 79
2014
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01. The First Night of the Proms
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The festival opens with Elgar’s biblical oratorio The Kingdom – the beautiful ‘slow movement’ of a planned musical triptych. Celebrated Elgarian Sir Andrew Davis conducts the massed forces of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the BBC National Chorus of Wales. They are joined by a distinguished cast of soloists including Proms regulars Christopher Purves and Catherine Wyn-Rogers.
02. Prom 2: Elgar, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky & Liszt
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East meets West as the China Philharmonic Orchestra launches our series of global orchestras making their debuts at the 2014 Proms.
03. Prom 3: BBC Sport Prom
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Sandwiched between the World Cup, Commonwealth Games and Wimbledon is the first ever BBC Sport Prom. Hosted by Gabby Logan, this special event combines classical favourites, TV themes and sports personalities, with the BBC Concert Orchestra on hand to capture the sporting thrills and spills.
04. Prom 4: BBC Proms Masterworks: Strauss and Mahler
2014-08-14
Tom Service presents as Russian maestro Valery Gergiev brings the World Orchestra for Peace to the Proms for a performance of Mahler's all-encompassing Sixth Symphony. In celebration of Richard Strauss's 150th birthday year, Gergiev also conducts the symphonic fantasia Die Frau ohne Schatten.
05. Prom 5: Beethoven, Dvořák & R.Strauss
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Proms favourite Julia Fischer returns as soloist in Dvořák’s earthy, folk-infused violin concerto, joining Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra for David Zinman’s final concert as its Chief Conductor. Strauss’s playful depiction of the prankster Till Eulenspiegel continues the musical journey across Central Europe, and the evening closes among the breathtaking landscapes of Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’ Symphony.
06. Prom 6: Strauss – Der Rosenkavalier
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The Glyndebourne Festival’s annual visit to the Proms continues our Strauss 150th-anniversary celebrations with a semi-staging of his sparkling comic opera Der Rosenkavalier. Conductor Robin Ticciati conjures this gilded fantasy of fin-de-siècle Vienna with the help of an international cast, led by British soprano Kate Royal in her role debut as the Marschallin.
07. Prom 7: Shostakovich, Bartók & Tavener
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Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony – a violent portrait of the horrors of Stalin’s Russia – is the centrepiece of this concert from Jiří Bělohlávek and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. They are joined by German violinist Isabelle Faust for the passionate nationalism of Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto, and the concert opens with the first of two posthumous premieres this season by John Tavener.
08. Prom 8: Pet Shop Boys
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Better known as the electro-pop duo the Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe make their Proms debut here as composers. The world premiere of their large-scale work A Man from the Future, inspired by code-breaker Alan Turing, sits alongside new orchestral arrangements of favourite Pet Shop Boys songs.
09. Prom 9: Brahms & Janáček
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One of choral music’s greatest works, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass is a passionate, secular oratorio celebrating nationhood and peace. By contrast, conflict is to the fore in Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1, a work that distils the drama of the composer’s relationship with Schumann and his wife Clara. Valery Gergiev conducts the London Symphony Orchestra, with soloist Barry Douglas.
10. Prom 10: Elgar, Walton, Moeran & David Horne
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A concert of 20th-century English music explores musical friendships. Walton’s Hindemith Variations pay homage to a beloved colleague; Elgar’s 'Enigma' Variations paint evocative portraits of family and friends. Tasmin Little joins the BBC Philharmonic for Moeran’s rarely heard Violin Concerto, and English music comes right up to date with David Horne’s Daedalus in Flight.
11. Prom 11: CBeebies Prom
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Following the sell-out success of 2013’s Doctor Who Prom, this year parents are invited to join their children for the first ever CBeebies Prom. Take a journey through the history of classical music with some of your favourite CBeebies characters, in an adventure that combines live music from the BBC Philharmonic and video action on screens around the Royal Albert Hall.
12. Prom 12: BBC Proms Masterworks: Bach's St John Passion
2014-07-31
Tom Service explores masterworks from the 2014 BBC Proms, beginning with the epic drama of Bach's St John Passion. Much loved British conductor Sir Roger Norrington conducts the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and Zürcher Sing-Akademie, with tenor James Gilchrist singing the part of the Evangelist.
14. Prom 14: Duruflé, Ravel and Simon Holt
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The lilt of the waltz pulses through the first half of this programme – first in Ravel’s modernist reimagining in Valses nobles et sentimentales, and then in his witty La valse. French music takes a sacred turn after the interval with Duruflé’s Requiem, and elsewhere Swiss flute virtuoso Emmanuel Pahud premieres Simon Holt’s concerto Morpheus Wakes.
15. Prom 15: Mozart, Ravel & Jonathan Dove
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Turbulent mythical love meets poised Classical elegance in a concert from the BBC Symphony Orchestra that sets Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 alongside Ravel’s sensuous ballet score Daphnis and Chloe. Launching us far beyond either Mozart’s Vienna or Ravel’s Paris, Jonathan Dove’s new orchestral work Gaia Theory explores the idea of life on our planet evolving alongside the environment.
16. Prom 16: Oriental Promise
2014-08-31
The Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic Orchestra make their debut at the festival. Music inspired by the east colours the programme, with the sounds and scents of bazaars and seraglios, as well as portraits of the Queen of Sheba by both Handel and Respighi. Also, violin virtuoso Daniel Hope premieres a new concerto by the remarkable young composer Gabriel Prokofiev, grandson of the great Sergei Prokofiev. Presented by Katie Derham.
17. Prom 17: Rameau – Grands Motets
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Returning for its second concert this season, Les Arts Florissants is joined by founder-conductor William Christie for a Late Night Prom that transforms the Royal Albert Hall into the gilded splendour of the Chapel Royal at Versailles, combining choir, orchestra and soloists for Rameau’s Grands Motets.
18. Prom 18: Ravel's Left Hand Piano Concerto
2014-08-08
In his proms concerto debut, French pianist Alexandre Tharaud performs one of Ravel's last great works, the Piano Concerto for the Left Hand. Conductor Juanjo Mena also leads the BBC Philharmonic in a Mahler masterpiece, the Fifth Symphony, which includes one of greatest love letters ever written - the famous Adagietto. Presented by Suzy Klein and Nicholas McCarthy.
19. Prom 19: The Sunday Prom: Richard Strauss Celebration
2014-08-03
From the Royal Albert Hall, Katie Derham presents a 150th anniversary celebration of the birth of Richard Strauss. The acclaimed Danish soprano Inger Dam-Jensen sings the composer's exquisite Four Last Songs in a prom which also showcases two of Strauss's rarely heard works - his majestic Festival Prelude and his Deutsche Motette for choir and four solo voices. The mood of late-romantic nostalgia continues with a performance of Elgar's Second Symphony. Vasily Petrenko conducts the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Singers.
20. Prom 20: Walton, Gurney & Sally Beamish
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Continuing our commemoration of the centenary since the outbreak of the First World War, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins explore English responses to conflict in Ivor Gurney’s War Requiem and Walton’s poignant First Symphony. Plus Sally Beamish’s accordion concerto.
21. Prom 21: Kiss Me, Kate at the Proms
2014-12-25
John Wilson and his orchestra are joined by a spectacular ensemble of singers and dancers from Broadway and the West End for a unique performance of the classic musical Kiss Me, Kate. Hits including Another Op'nin, Another Show, Wunderbar and Too Darn Hot combine to create a dazzling evening of music, dance and theatre to mark 50 years since the death of its celebrated composer and lyricist Cole Porter. This hilarious take on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew is performed in its glorious 1948 original orchestration, a highlight of the 2014 BBC Proms season at the Royal Albert Hall. Starring Ben Davis, Alexandra Silber, Tony Yazbeck and Louise Dearman.
22. Prom 22: War Horse Prom
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The Proms continues to commemorate the anniversary of the outbreak of First World War, collaborating for the first time with the National Theatre for a concert inspired by Michael Morpurgo’s award-winning play War Horse. Lifesize War Horse puppets join the BBC Concert Orchestra, Gareth Malone and the Military Wives on stage for a performance that explores the music and stories of the Great War.
23. Prom 23: BBC Proms Masterworks: Mozart and Beethoven
2014-08-07
Tom Service invites us to listen to well-known, definitive masterworks from two of the greatest composers of all time with a fresh ear. Donald Runnicles takes on Beethoven's Fourth Symphony with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and joins forces with the National Youth Choir of Scotland and four top British soloists for Mozart's Requiem - a work of tragic beauty both musically and historically, left unfinished by Mozart just before his death in 1791. Soloists are the soprano Carolyn Sampson, mezzo-soprano Christine Rice, tenor Jeremy Ovenden and bass Neal Davies.
24. Prom 24: Vaughan Williams & Mahler
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Donald Runnicles conducts a programme that looks to the past – a musical meditation on history, death and loss that still speaks powerfully today, 100 years after the start of the First World War. The concert sets Mahler’s bitterly elegiac Ninth Symphony against the ecstatic string writing of Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis, a work reimagining an English identity that would so soon find itself under threat.
25. Prom 25: The Sunday Prom: John Tavener Premiere
2014-08-10
Sir John Tavener, who died in 2013, was one of the country's defining musical voices. His sacred choral music, inspired by his deep Orthodox faith, touches the hearts of millions and has been the soundtrack to some of this nation's most moving events. Just before he died he completed his Requiem Fragments, commissioned by the BBC for this Prom. The Tallis Scholars are conducted by Sir John's great friend Peter Phillips, who describes the work as a miraculous masterpiece. The concert begins with his radiant choral work, Ikon of Light. Presented by Katie Derham.
26. Prom 26: Shostakovich & Berio
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This concert from the European Union Youth Orchestra opens with Berio’s 20th-century classic, Sinfonia – a witty, whistle-stop tour through centuries of Western culture, from Bach to The Beatles. Shostakovich’s embattled Fourth Symphony attempts to reconcile the same conflicts and contradictions as Berio, but finds only Babel and madness, in one of the composer’s most confrontational works.
27. Prom 27: Wagner, Elgar & Mathias
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The BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Mark Wigglesworth perform the exuberantly rhythmic overture to Wagner’s early comedy Das Liebesverbot and Elgar’s richly orchestrated First Symphony – a work itself steeped in the Germanic tradition. Exciting young British violinist Matthew Trusler joins the orchestra as soloist for Mathias’s neglected Violin Concerto – a virtuosic celebration of song and dance.
28. Prom 28: Beethoven & Stravinsky
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Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Chorus and BBC Singers in one of the great 20th-century dramatic showpieces – Stravinsky’s vivid and visceral ‘opera-oratorio’ Oedipus rex. The concert opens with Beethoven’s beloved Egmont overture.
29. Prom 29: Chopin, Franck, Saint-Saëns & Casella
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A concert of big melodies and even bigger sounds culminates in Saint-Saëns’s mighty ‘Organ’ Symphony. The French theme continues with Franck’s Symphonic Variations and, at just 22 years old, British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor returns for his fourth Proms appearance, performing both in the Franck and in Chopin’s virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 1.
30. Prom 30: Battle of the Bands
2014-08-17
Jazz singer and broadcaster Clare Teal transports us back to the heady days of the swing band era of the 1930s and 1940s in a recreation of the bands of Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Conductor James Pearson of the Count Pearson Proms Band takes on Grant Windsor of the Duke Windsor Proms band in a roof-raising battle, with help from vocalists Gregory Porter and Vula Malinga. The evening culminates in a bespoke rousing 'battle royal' for the biggest audience ovation. Presented by Katie Derham.
31. Prom 31: Beethoven's Eroica Symphony
2014-08-15
The work that changed the course of music forever, Beethoven's epic Eroica Symphony is the culmination of this concert from Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé. Berlioz's swashbuckling overture Le corsaire, depicting the adventures of pirates on the ocean wave, opens the concert with a splash. Elder is famed for his Elgar and he is joined by British mezzo-soprano Alice Coote for the Sea Pictures, Elgar's orchestral song-cycle exploring the fascination and fear inspired by the sea. Presented by Suzy Klein and Rodney Earl Clarke.
32. Prom 32: Beethoven, Bruch & Walton
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Three masterworks from three different centuries: Beethoven’s First Symphony is all 18th- century poise and wit, Bruch’s First Violin Concerto swoons with 19th-century romance, and Walton’s Henry V celebrates the golden age of 20th-century film music. Sir Neville Marriner is joined by Joshua Bell, the Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, who appears here both as conductor (Beethoven) and soloist (Bruch).
33. Prom 33: BBC Proms Masterworks: Stravinsky and Lutoslawski
2014-08-28
Tom Service presents as the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain return for their annual Proms performance. Ed Gardner conducts an energetic programme of 20th-century music featuring Stravinsky's vivid ballet Petrushka, Lutoslawski's colourful Concerto for Orchestra and Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto with soloist Louis Schwizgebel.
34. Prom 34: R. Strauss, Mozart & Nielsen
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In the first of two concerts with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Principal Conductor Thomas Søndergård directs the first of two great Scandinavian symphonies. Nielsen’s Fifth Symphony explores a bleakness that is also at the core of Strauss’s great tone-poem Tod und Verklärung. The ‘complicated nonsense’ of Strauss’s youthful Burleske and Mozart’s sunny Rondo in A major complete the concert, both featuring pianist Franceso Piemontesi.
35. Prom 35: BBC Proms Masterworks: Walton and Sibelius
2014-08-21
Tom Service reaches the 20th century on his route through Masterworks at the Proms, by way of Jean Sibelius and William Walton. Canadian violinist James Ehnes performs Walton's striking violin concerto, and Thomas Sondergard conducts the National Orchestra of Wales in two works by Sibelius - the transcendent tone poem The Swan of Tuonela, and his Fifth Symphony with its memorable, ecstatic 'swan theme'.
36. Prom 36: Vaughan Williams & Alwyn
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The dreamy pastoralism of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending contrasts with the jaunty vigour of the composer’s overture The Wasps in this all-English Prom. Job continues this season’s thread of great 20th-century ballet scores, while William Alwyn’s First Symphony adds to the evening’s nostalgia with the endless melody of its slow movement. Janine Jansen joins Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra as soloist.
37. Prom 37: Steve Reich
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Surrender to the pulsing rhythms and repetitions of Minimalism’s founding father, Steve Reich, performed by the BBC Singers and contemporary specialists the Endymion Ensemble. Relive the early experimentation of It’s Gonna Rain with its hypnotic layers of spoken sound, while The Desert Music offers a hypnotising meditation on fragments of William Carlos Williams’s poetry.
38. Prom 38: Sibelius, Bridge & Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
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Sibelius’s slowly shifting structures and emotive musical language, showcased here in his Second Symphony, are echoed and evolved in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s Fifth Symphony. John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic also mark the First World Way centenary in Bridge’s haunting Oration – part lament, part warning.
39. Prom 39: R. Strauss, Rameau, Mozart and Bernard Rands
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Rameau’s opera Les Indes galantes and Strauss’s tone-poem Ein Heldenleben were notorious flops at their premieres, yet both are now recognised as peaks of their genre. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra take us from 18th-century France to fin-de-siècle Germany (with a quick stop-off in Chelsea, where the 8-year-old Mozart composed his First Symphony) in a concert that also includes the UK premiere of Bernard Rands’s Piano Concerto.
40. Prom 40: Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra
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Coloured by sleigh-bells and charming melodies, Mahler’s Fourth Symphony is the centrepiece of this Prom by Bernard Haitink and the London Symphony Orchestra. They pair Mahler’s mighty work with the Classical perfection of Schubert’s Fifth Symphony.
41. Prom 41: Aurora Orchestra
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The Aurora Orchestra and Nicholas Collon contrast Mozart’s graceful Symphony with two much newer pieces: Dobrinka Tabakova’s hurdy-gurdy-inflected Spinning a Yarn and Benedict Mason’s audacious BBC commission, Meld.
42. Prom 42: In Memoriam WWI
2014-08-22
Razia Iqbal and Petroc Trelawny present a special concert drawing together four composers whose lives and music were impacted by WW1. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Manze performs Vaughan Williams's post-war composition, the elegiac Pastoral Symphony. The three promising young composers also featured in the concert were all killed in the war and have left us poignant evocations of lost lands and innocence destroyed - George Butterworth's settings of poems from AE Housman's nostalgic collection A Shropshire Lad; Australian-born Frederick Septimus Kelly's Elegy for his friend Rupert Brooke; and, from across the battle lines, German composer Rudi Stephan's Music for Orchestra.
43. Prom 43: Rachmaninov, Stravinsky & Tchaikovsky
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An all-Russian programme from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Edward Gardner opens with the buzzing energy of Stravinsky’s Scherzo fantastique and end in the cannon-fire of Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812’ Overture. In between come Rachmaninov’s choral symphony The Bells and Stravinsky’s iconoclastic violin concerto, performed here by soloist Baiba Skride.
44. Prom 44: Elgar's Cello Concerto
2014-08-24
English weekend at the Proms continues with Elgar's autumnal, sepia-toned Cello Concerto, written after the horrors of the First World War. Norwegian virtuoso cellist Truls Mørk joins the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, visiting the Proms from Australia for the first time and conducted by a Proms favourite, Sir Andrew Davis. The concert opens with Richard Strauss's spectacular tone poem about the serial womaniser Don Juan, with romantic unrequited love at the heart of the final piece, Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. Presented by Katie Derham.
45. Prom 45: Late Night with… Laura Mvula
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Brit Award- and Mercury-nominated singer-songwriter Laura Mvula returns to the BBC Proms for an intimate Late Night Prom – a cabaret-style evening of music that couches Mvula’s talents in rich orchestral textures.
46. Prom 46: Barenboim Conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the Proms
2014-08-29
A Proms visit from Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is always an exciting event. The international ensemble's home is Seville and the programme has a strong Spanish flavour. Razia Iqbal and organist-conductor Wayne Marshall present Mozart's sparkling overture to the Marriage of Figaro - set just outside Seville - and a series of Ravel pieces including Rapsodie espagnol, Pavane for a Dead Princess and the ultra-popular Bolero.
47. Prom 47: Britten – War Requiem
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Wilfred Owen’s shattering verse sits at the heart of Britten’s War Requiem – that great pacifist outpouring of horror and sorrow. Performed here in this First World War centenary year by the same orchestra which premiered it in 1962, in this performance the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Andris Nelsons are joined by the BBC Proms Youth Choir.
48. Prom 48: Classical Tectonics
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The Iceland Symphony Orchestra makes its Proms debut with works by two homegrown composers, both inspired by Iceland’s geology. The slow-growing, primal force of Leifs’s Geysir is balanced by the shifting tectonics of Tómasson’s Magma. Jonathan Biss joins the orchestra for Schumann’s Piano Concerto, and the concert closes with Beethoven’s dramatic Fifth Symphony.
49. Prom 49: Russian Fairy Tales
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Ice-maidens, pirates and princesses form the cast of this fairy-tale concert. The BBC Symphony Orchestra is joined by soprano Anu Komsi to perform Szymanowski’s atmospheric Songs of a Fairy Princess. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade sees the orchestra turn storyteller.
50. Prom 50: Dvořák, Beethoven & Janáček
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Cellist Alisa Weilerstein returns to the Proms with one of the great Romantic concertos – Dvořák’s Cello Concerto. Jiří Bělohlávek leads the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Beethoven’s ‘apotheosis of the dance’, the Seventh Symphony; and the evening opens with a Czech flavour, in the overture to Janáček’s final opera, From the House of the Dead.
51. Prom 51: Free Prom – Dvořák, Grieg, Bax & Bill Whelan
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This year’s Free Prom is a Bank Holiday matinee from the Ulster Orchestra, bursting with dance rhythms and colour. A selection of Dvořák’s rustic Slavonic Dances opens the concert, and Grieg’s piano concerto with its jaunty dance-themed finale continues the mood. The evening ends in the orchestra’s musical heartland with Bax’s tone-poem Roscatha and Bill Whelan’s new Riverdance suite – adapted from his music for the ever-popular stage show.
52. Prom 52: Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra
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The Bank Holiday weekend celebrations continue with Proms favourites the Budapest Festival Orchestra and a programme of orchestral showpieces from the Habsburg Empire. Viennese-style Strauss dances are matched by Brahms’s colourful Hungarian Dances and Kodály’s sweeping Dances of Galánta, balanced by the crisp Classical textures of a Mozart March. At the centre is Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony.
53. Prom 53: Brahms Night
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The second of two concerts from Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra reinstates the Proms tradition of composer nights with an evening dedicated to the music of Brahms. His intimate, autumnal Third Symphony gives way to the nobility and stature of the Fourth – a heavyweight symphony with one of the loveliest slow movements the composer ever wrote.
54. Prom 54: Monteverdi Choir Birthday Prom - Beethoven
2014-09-05
Samira Ahmed presents a concert celebrating 50 years of the world-famous Monteverdi Choir, founded by conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. This Prom of Beethoven's mighty Missa Solemnis also features the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique with a line-up of star soloists. The performance is introduced by a short film exploring the Monteverdi Choir's impact on the music scene over 50 groundbreaking years.
55. Prom 55: Tchaikovsky, Debussy & Unsuk Chin
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Myung-Whun Chung directs the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, making its Proms debut this year. Unsuk Chin’s sheng concerto evokes the sounds of South Korea and is an extended sonic game between soloist and orchestra. Framing this is the sensuous richness of Debussy’s La mer and Tchaikovsky’s final symphony, with its elusive and emotional narrative.
56. Prom 56: Holst – The Planets
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Masterpieces from Schoenberg, Holst and Scriabin offer three very different portraits of 20th-century music in this concert by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski. Big tunes and vivid characterisation make Holst’s The Planets a perennial favourite, while Scriabin’s Prometheus is an eccentric musical experiment. Premiered at the Proms in 1912, Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces took tonality to a new limit.
57. Prom 57: Mahler – Symphony No. 2, ‘Resurrection’
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In a symphony that took over six years to complete, Mahler wrestles with the essential questions of humanity. Birth, death and the fragile stages between are the subject of this grand musical exploration, which culminates in a transcendent choral finale. Daniel Harding and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra are joined by soloists Kate Royal and Chistianne Stotijn.
58. Prom 58: Strauss – Salome
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In Richard Strauss’s 150th-anniversary year the Proms presents a double bill of his two great tragedies. On consecutive nights his heroines Salome and Elektra meet their bloody ends in the Royal Albert Hall. Donald Runnicles brings his Deutsche Oper forces to the Proms for Salome. Star soprano Nina Stemme leads the cast as the troubled princess.
59. Prom 59: Strauss – Elektra
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Elektra – Strauss’s brutal and ferociously powerful retelling of the Greek revenge myth – continues this weekend’s opera double bill. The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Semyon Bychkov are joined by an international cast of soloists, led by American soprano Christine Goerke, with Danish baritone Johan Reuter as her beloved brother Orestes.
60. Prom 60: Roman Holiday
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Plunge into a joyous carnival maelstrom with Berlioz’s giddy Roman Carnival overture. The Italian theme continues with Respighi’s Roman trilogy – a vivid picture of life in the Eternal City. Danny Driver joins the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Charles Dutoit in Walton’s Sinfonia concertante – a piano concerto in all but name.
61. Prom 61: Rachmaninov, Glinka & Zhou Long
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The Singapore Symphony Orchestra makes its Proms debut, bringing Pulitzer Prize-winning Chinese composer Zhou Long’s piano concerto Postures – a work fusing Western forms and Eastern memories. The concert opens with the overture to Glinka’s fairy-tale opera Ruslan and Lyudmila, and closes with Rachmaninov’s ever-popular Second Symphony.
62. Prom 62: Beethoven, Berlioz & Dvořák
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Symphonies from Beethoven and Dvořák bookend an emotive programme from Sir Roger Norrington and the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra. At its core is the wistful 'Romeo Alone’ section of Berlioz’s ‘dramatic symphony’ Romeo and Juliet. Beethoven’s ‘little symphony in F’ brings joy and wit to the mix, while Dvořák’s ‘New World’ Symphony is an elegiac homage to his Bohemian homeland.
63. Prom 63: BBC Proms Masterworks: Mahler and Adams
2014-09-04
Live from the Royal Albert Hall, Tom Service presents music from multi-award-winning American composer John Adams, alongside Mahler's imaginatively ambitious 1st Symphony. Saxophonist Timothy McAllister performs the UK premiere of Adams's Saxophone Concerto and Marin Alsop conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
64. Prom 64: Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker
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Last at the Proms in 2012, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker return for an all-Russian programme inspired by dance. Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances embraces jazz, plainchant and the waltz in a virtuosic orchestral showpiece. After the interval we enter the Russian fairy-tale world of Stravinsky’s magical The Firebird, in this vivid, folk-infused ballet score.
65. Prom 65: Late Night Live with Paloma Faith and Guy Barker
2014-09-05
The Royal Albert Hall shimmers with flamboyance as Paloma Faith takes to the stage in her debut Proms performance. The multi-platinum London-born singer-songwriter is reunited with conductor, composer, trumpeter and arranger Guy Barker, a 42-piece jazz orchestra and the elite Urban Voices Collective for a one-off concert featuring new arrangements of songs, including Picking up the Pieces, Can't Rely on You, Only Love Can Hurt Like This and Upside Down.
66. Prom 66: Bach – St Matthew Passion
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Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker present Peter Sellars’s staging of Bach’s St Matthew Passion for the first time in the UK. It’s a work that confronts suffering and torture as well as salvation and redemption in some of Bach’s most moving music. Mark Padmore’s Evangelist leads a starry cast that also includes celebrated German baritone Christian Gerhaher.
67. Prom 67: Friday Night at the Proms: Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto
2014-09-12
Daniel Hope and Danielle De Niese present a pair of great Romantic blockbusters - Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, featuring soloist Denis Matsuev. The Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra makes its first visit to the BBC Proms, conducted by its music director Han-Na Chang.
68. Prom 68: The Sunday Prom: The Cleveland Orchestra
2014-09-07
Katie Derham is live at the world's biggest classical music festival as the legendary Cleveland Orchestra perform at the BBC Proms. This is a rare chance to hear one of America's best orchestras in a huge Proms favourite, Brahms's First Symphony. The concert opens with Brahms in a lighter mood in his Academic Festival Overture and also includes the UK premiere of an elegant, dance-like flute concerto by German clarinettist and composer Jorg Widmann.
69. Prom 69: Cleveland Orchestra
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Completing this year’s cycle of Brahms symphonies, the Cleveland Orchestra returns with the composer’s Symphony No. 2 – an open-hearted score of great warmth and appeal. By contrast, Brahms’s Tragic Overture lives up to its name with turbulent intensity. The concert is completed by Jörg Widmann’s Teufel Amor, a musical account of the contradictions, tensions and resolutions of love.
70. Prom 70: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies Birthday Concert
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On Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’s 80th birthday, the Proms pays tribute in a concert of works selected by the composer himself. The concert overture Ebb of Winter captures the rugged beauty of Davies’s Orkney home. We see a different side of island life in the joyous ebullience of his Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise; the virtuosic fourth Strathclyde Concerto, for clarinet and orchestra, completes the concert.
71. Prom 71: Americana
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It’s American Night at the Proms. We travel through history, from traditional folk songs and dances in Copland’s Appalachian Spring, through the contemplative Quiet City to Chris Brubeck’s contemporary blend of classical, jazz, blues and country music. His Travels in Time for Three is a thrill-ride concerto composed for virtuoso string trio Time for Three and orchestra.
72. Prom 72: English Music
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An evening of 20th-century English music that looks beyond pastoral stereotypes. The nostalgic idyll of Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves’ is soon abandoned for the brutality of his Symphony No. 4 and Birtwistle’s Exody – a terrifying musical labyrinth. Walton’s much-loved Viola Concerto is played here by rising star and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Lise Berthaud.
73. Prom 73: Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra
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Mahler’s epic, unorthodox Third Symphony unfolds over six movements, painting a musical portrait with choir and orchestra of nature’s very essence. American conductor Alan Gilbert returns to conduct this masterpiece with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.
74. Prom 74: Late Night with… Rufus Wainwright
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Joined by the instrumentalists of the Britten Sinfonia, Canadian-American, Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright performs a spectacular set, taking over the Royal Albert Hall with his own brand of ‘Baroque pop’ that references everything from opera to ragtime, Lieder and jazz.
75. Prom 75: Beethoven – Symphony No. 9
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A highlight of every Proms season, this year Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 returns to its traditional slot on the penultimate night. Alan Gilbert and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra are joined by an international cast of soloists for this audacious musical testament to faith and unity across all nations and creeds.
76. Proms 76: Last Night of the Proms
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Sakari Oramo directs his first Last Night of the Proms, joined by powerhouse Dutch violinist Janine Jansen. Richard Strauss' anniversary is marked with the first Proms performance of the composer’s extraordinary cantata Taillefer. Ansell’s romp of a nautical overture, Plymouth Hoe, and Ravel’s gypsy-dance Tzigane add colourful contributions to this musical celebration that culminates, as always, with a mass singalong.
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