How do you get five thousand plus people into the Albert Hall to hear two Sanskrit-based rarities by British-born composers? Simple: place the Elgar Cello Concerto in between them. Here was another daring Prom programme that totally worked, not least since cellist Senja Rummukainen, compatriot of the BBC Symphony Orchestra much-loved Finnish chief conductor Sakari Oramo, proved as sensitive as him and his players to the elusive core of what's surprisingly become a popular classic.At first it seemed as if this interpretation was going to be the polar opposite of the one I'd heard previously, Read more ...

Under its master music director, the once-torpid Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has given us some of the most brilliant concerts of the 2023-4 season. Their Prom together changed course from the Elgar/Rachmaninov theme and dared even more, placing together four works in three parts each – two with atmospheric outer sections flanking vivid ceremonials (Ives, Debussy), two placing the lyricism at the dead centre (Ravel, Tchaikovsky).To label it a vintage Prom in form, a new work would have been necessary. But Charles Ives’ Three Places in New England still sounds like one, and its big symphonic Read more ...

It seems like only yesterday – the date in fact was 22 December 2016 – that 17-year-old Sheku Kanneh-Mason, fresh from his win as BBC Young Musician of the Year, played the Haydn C major Cello Concerto in a Pimlico church with a group of young players known collectively as the Fantasia Orchestra and conducted by Tom Fetherstonhaugh (Sibelius’s Second Symphony followed).In the orchestra was the cellist's 18-year-old violinist brother Braimah. The constitution of the players wasn’t something I knew at the time. Braimah (pictured below by Ron Milsom in a Fantasia concert at the Guiting Festival Read more ...

What is Englishness? Over the last century the answer has changed substantially. Yet last night’s Prom, which – according to the programme – set itself the task of celebrating “all things English” had a very particular answer.This was an England of Eric Ravilious paintings, Earl Grey tea, the vibrant greens of a hedgerow, the gentle plop of croquet mallets against croquet balls. The compositions spanned more than a century, and their reference points more than half a millennium, yet they all had an elegance and subtlety that evoked a very homegrown pastoral tradition.From the outset, Read more ...

Returning after ten months to the unique vasts of Albert’s colosseum, especially for a Verdi Requiem as powerful as this and a packed hall, felt like a rebirth. There was immediate purging in the focused whispers of the first “Requiem aeternam”s, BBC National Orchestra of Wales Principal Conductor Ryan Bancroft instilling a confidence you knew would last the evening, and instant thrills in the clarion “Kyrie”s of all four world-class soloists.Were there imperfections? Fleetingly. Bass Soloman Howard sometimes ran ahead of the orchestra in “Confutatis maledictis” – Bancroft seems like a Read more ...

This looked like a classic Prom in the grand old BBC tradition: two big but lesser-known pieces by pivotal figures (Schoenberg and Zemlinsky) played by a major non-metropolitan ensemble, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. And so it proved, with powerful, refined and meatily satisfying versions of Arnold Schoenberg’s Pelleas and Melisande and Alexander von Zemlinsky’s The Mermaid conducted by the NOW’s chief, Ryan Bancroft.Here, surely, where entertainment meets enlightenment, the Proms heartland used to lie. But, on a perfect July evening, the house was much sparser than it should have been Read more ...

The first night of the BBC’s 2024 Proms season was illuminated by the blazing brilliance of Isata Kanneh-Mason’s performance of Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto and the world premiere of Ben Nobuto’s witty video-game-inspired Hallelujah Sim. Hong Kong born conductor Elim Chan presided over a vibrant, joyful evening in which apparent crowd-pleasers like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony were balanced by pieces that ranged from the sublime to the mischievously meticulous.The BBC Symphony Orchestra kicked off with Handel’s 1749 Music for the Royal Fireworks as an amuse bouche, which was rearranged in Read more ...

So maybe there’s a bigger quota of popular Proms, leading Stephen Walsh to lambast what he sees as "junk" to avoid. It surely doesn’t matter. Among the 89 concerts, some of them beyond the Royal Albert Hall, the mix of old and new, middle-of-the-road and deeply serious, is as strong as ever. There’s no dumbing-down.A recent online article for a paper which should know better posits well-known classics as “lowbrow”. When it comes to Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini or Holst’s The Planets, there’s no such thing: these masterpieces are popular for a reason. Many Prommers will be Read more ...

When it was first announced that Mark Elder was to become music director of the Hallé, I phoned a friend who knew him well from serving on his staff at English National Opera in earlier years. “He’s completely devoted,” he said. “He never does anything superficially, he’s always well prepared, he’s a good orchestra trainer, and he’ll last longer than other conductors.” It was a description and prediction that was amply fulfilled in the following quarter-century.And, with characteristic meticulous planning and awareness of what was right for the occasion, Sir Mark chose to present a European Read more ...

A conductor who can now add "Gár" to his less flattering sobriquets may not have appeared as advertised at this year's Proms, but surely Chris Christodoulou can find a photo of him punching the air among his 43 years' worth of conductor portraits from "the biggest music festival in the world". We'll do without this time.For the past 13 of those years, Chris has given theartsdesk the benefit of images which may not have made the main cut but which are wonderfully revealing of commitment and idiosyncrasy. His selection for 2023, like the season itself which was a huge success both financially Read more ...

Bruckner's behemoth has always had its fervent champions – and its muttering sceptics. The 85-odd minutes of his Eighth Symphony, finally performed after major revisions in 1892, build into a titanic testament. Advocates read into it enough apocalyptic doom and gloom to make Wagner sound like Offenbach.Thank the gods, therefore, that the always-impressive Semyon Bychkov guided the BBC Symphony Orchestra through across these craggy Alpine peaks at the Proms with a listener-friendly finesse, even geniality. With its explosive timpani, tank-division horns and earth-trembling low strings, the Read more ...

During his transformational time at the helm of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Vladimir Jurowski conducted the complete Threepenny Opera in concert and two performances of Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony which changed my mind about its being good only in parts. Last night’s interpretation made his fellow Russian’s late fantasy billow and soar, while Weill’s Little Threepenny Music opened with sheer stylish delight in the song/dance numbers framed by incisive austerity.That supposedly orchestral pianist so responsive to a genial Jurowski and the wind players of the Berlin Radio Symphony Read more ...