thu 17/07/2025

Proms

The Last Night of the Proms, Benedetti, Calleja, BBCSO, Bělohlávek

The BBC Symphony Chorus did a mass Mobot. A posse of medal-winning rowers and sailors led the encore of Rule, Britannia. The Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja entered in Team GB trackies. It has been, we can probably agree, a summer unlike others we have...

Read more...

BBC Proms: Vienna Philharmonic, Haitink

The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra can play Haydn’s last symphony - No 104 “London” - in its sleep but that is not, I hasten to add, the impression one wants to take away from any performance of it and especially not in the city that inspired it. The...

Read more...

BBC Proms: Perahia, Vienna Philharmonic, Haitink

You’ve never seen so many people at a Prom, thousands of them packed into every space of the Albert Hall inside, while outside a 100-metre line of hopefuls queued in vain to stand in a pit where a small cat couldn’t have been added. But then this...

Read more...

BBC Proms: Cameron Carpenter/ Znaider, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly

I'd love to see the stats on the last time a Prom was this packed for an afternoon organ recital. Were it not for the fact that organist Cameron Carpenter was sporting spandex trousers encrusted in silver glitter, a wife beater and Mohawk, you...

Read more...

BBC Proms: Bronfman, Berlin Philharmonic, Rattle

Champagne on ice in the private boxes; scarcely any spare seats. This isn’t the normal situation for a concert climaxing in Witold Lutosławski’s Third Symphony, a modernist work whose usual audience is more than two men and a dog but still doesn’t...

Read more...

BBC Proms: Berlin Philharmonic, Rattle

It's not completely unheard of what Sir Simon Rattle did at the start of last night's Prom, where he elided two familiar works - Ligeti's colouristic classic Atmosphères and the Prelude to Act One of Wagner's Lohengrin - into a...

Read more...

BBC Proms: BBCSO, Brabbins/Eric Whitacre Singers, Heap, Whitacre

Eric Whitacre – less a composer or conductor, more a global choral phenomenon. Just the mention of his name in last night’s concert introduction drew whoops and wolf-whistles from the crowd, certainly not a reaction you tend to get for Beethoven,...

Read more...

BBC Proms: Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, Gatti

In a festival season as long as the BBC Proms there are always going to be some longueurs, weeks where the orchestral playing is more adequate than astonishing. Get stuck in one of these and it’s easy to start doubting your ears, to wonder whether...

Read more...

BBC Proms: Peter Grimes, English National Opera/ BBC Symphony Orchestra, Knussen

After the all-singing, all-dancing, all-helicoptering brilliance of Stockhausen Mittwoch aus Licht, the dry routine of an opera in concert didn't seem a very enticing prospect.  That's the problem with this year's Cultural Olympiad. We're...

Read more...

BBC Proms: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Petrenko

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ Ninth Symphony, completed in 2012 and heard in London for the first time in this concert, is dedicated to the Queen on her Diamond Jubilee. Those are not words to strike eager anticipation into my heart , though I’m happy...

Read more...

BBC Proms: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Nelsons

It is a rare treat for Londoners to have the CBSO with Andris Nelsons in town, and the Albert Hall was, if not fully sold out, then certainly well stocked. It would be fair to assume that the main draw was Shostakovich’s giant and much-debated...

Read more...

BBC Proms: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Manze

One chocolate bar, OK. But eating three in a row? Is that altogether wise? Some may feel the same about a concert containing three symphonies by Vaughan Williams: a third of his output in the form. Even the most committed lover of this visionary and...

Read more...
Subscribe to Proms