Royal Albert Hall
Prom 55: SWR SO Baden-Baden and Freiburg, RothThursday, 27 August 2015
The only reasonable explanation for the all too belated arrival at the Proms of the SWR Baden-Baden and Freiburg Orchestra is that the festival’s house band, the BBC Symphony, is the one other ensemble reasonably entitled to claim the title of best... Read more... |
Prom Chamber Music 6: Jeremy Denk/ Prom 53: Fray, Philharmonia, SalonenTuesday, 25 August 2015
There were two reasons why I didn’t return to the Albert Hall late on Friday night to hear Andras Schiff play Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The first was that one epic, Mahler’s Sixth in the stunning performance by Andris Nelsons and the Boston... Read more... |
Prom 51: Boston SO, NelsonsMonday, 24 August 2015
Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra have made the Shostakovich Tenth their calling card. Their recent recording of the work on Deutsche Grammophon has received universal acclaim, and now they're making their first European tour together... Read more... |
Prom 49: Hardenberger, Boston SO, NelsonsSunday, 23 August 2015
So here he was in town with his top American team, the already great conductor whose premature departure from Birmingham has left the players in mourning, unable to choose a successor yet, and whose insistence that it was too early to take up the... Read more... |
Prom 46: Znaider, Danish NSO, LuisiFriday, 21 August 2015
Praise be to Carl Nielsen. Praise always, of course, to one of the greatest symphonists, and happy 150th birthday (again), but gratitude on this occasion is due to a programme mostly lining up Nielsen works rare and familiar, for getting me to the... Read more... |
Prom 45: Leonskaja, RPO, DutoitThursday, 20 August 2015
Drawing an audience of five and a half thousand in to listen intently is harder than pushing out into the vasts of the Albert Hall. Yet it’s what seems to work best in this unpredictable space, and last night masterful veterans Elisabeth Leonskaja... Read more... |
Prom 43: BBCSO, VänskäTuesday, 18 August 2015
Nearly 10 years ago to the day, an almost unknown 24-year-old Venezuelan conductor came a cropper when valiantly stepping in at short notice to conduct Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony at the Proms. (His name was Gustavo Dudamel. Whatever happened to him... Read more... |
Prom 42: Rachlin, BBCSSO, VolkovMonday, 17 August 2015
A second night of Sibelius symphonies at the Proms, packed to the rafters just like its predecessor. Exit Thomas Dausgaard, the tuba needed for the first two symphonies but not for the Third or – surprising given its pervasive darkness – the Fourth... Read more... |
Prom 40: BBCSSO, DausgaardSunday, 16 August 2015
From Sakari Oramo’s riveting Nielsen symphonies at the Barbican to Thomas Dausgaard kicking off the Proms’ Sibelius cycle, the two Nordic immortals are well served in their 150th birthday year. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, whose reins... Read more... |
Prom 38: Osborne, BBC Philharmonic, MenaFriday, 14 August 2015
Pairing Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony with John Foulds’ Three Mantras was a smart piece of programming: established modern classic and obscure novelty sharing an inspiration from Indian music and philosophy, and both perfectly designed for showing... Read more... |
Prom 36: Hamelin, BBCSO, RothThursday, 13 August 2015
The pulling power of the BBC Proms was in action last night, as a virtually full Royal Albert Hall settled down at 6.30pm, and braced itself for 22 testing minutes of restless, angular, unforgiving 1960s Boulez.The audience had been lured in by the... Read more... |
Prom 33: Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, GardinerMonday, 10 August 2015
Sir John Eliot Gardiner has made great play for years with the idea that Beethoven’s Fifth is a revolutionary symphony in not only musical but political terms. Accordingly the first bars were a call to arms, taking no heed of a restless Proms... Read more... |
