BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts

John Wilson 12.09.25 Credit Chris Christodoulou 13
Reportedly one of the first concerts to sell out this year, this Prom will not have disappointed John Wilson’s admirers. A pity so many of them had risen from sickbeds...
BBC Proms Rachmaninovs Second Symphony photo credit BBC Andy Paradise 14
The stage layout gave a clue to the sound-world of the evening: violas seated to the right of the conductor, cellos and basses to the left. This arrangement allowed the...
BBC Proms Avi Avital - Between Worlds Photo: BBC / Sisi Burn
Perforce – because of the tube strikes – to listen to this concert live on Radio 3, rather than be present in the hall, having returned home after the earlier...
Vienna Phil Plays Bruckner Ninth Photo: Chris Christodoulou / BBC
Tube strike notwithstanding, the Vienna Philharmonic attracted a virtually full house and rightly so. In terms of technical expertise and the projection of a distinctive corporate sonority, neither performance could...
BBC Proms Vaughan Williamss ‘A London Symphony photo credit BBC Chris Christodoulou 18
The Royal Philharmonic may lack the high profile and sonic weight of starrier guest ensembles but their playing can be no less remarkable. In the Respighi and Vaughan Williams pieces...
BBC Proms Golda Schultz Sings Gershwin and Bernstein Credit Chris Christodoulou 23
An intriguing programme, partly a showcase for the German-based, proudly South African performer whose Proms tally includes one uniquely difficult gig, 2020’s COVID-struck Last Night. More recently she excelled as...
BBC Proms Chineke plays Shostakovich at the Proms photo credit BBC Andy Paradise 17 1
Sir Simon Rattle has been seen conducting in Lucerne, his withdrawal from tonight’s concert presumably linked to a Chineke! rehearsal schedule which could not be fulfilled between hospital appointments. A...
Classic Thriller Soundtracks photocredit Andy Paradise 21 1
At some point Proms planners will have noted that 2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Bernard Herrmann but what to do about it? Like most of the...
BBC Proms Ades Conducts the BBC SO photo credit BBC Andy Paradise 19 1
‘Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises…’ This was the kind of concert Oliver Knussen used to bring to the Proms. There were few takers for the grand...
BBC Proms Shostakovichs Lady Macbeth photo credit Andy Paradise 58
Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth (premiered 1934) infamously received a vicious denunciation in the Soviet regime's organ of propaganda Pravda, during a run of performances in Moscow in 1936 after having already attracted some...
BBC Proms Handels Alexanders Feast photo credit Chris Christodoulou 4
Handel composed Alexander’s Feast – an Ode adapted from a poem by John Dryden in praise of music, and ultimately of its patron saint, Cecilia – in 1736 at a...
BBC Proms Folk Songs and Dances photo credit Chris Christodoulou 6
Unlike at least one past LSO chief, Sir Simon Rattle shows every sign of wanting to continue his relationship with the ensemble he headed for a little over six years....
Khatia Buniatishvili Plays Tchaikovsky photocredit Chris Christodoulou 65
A concert of interruptions and changes – all stemming from an unwanted demonstration in the Gallery during the first piece, of which the Prommers, both standing and seated, made their...
BBC Proms Saint-Saëns’s ‘Organ’ Symphony Photo: BBC / Andy Paradise
This was a Prom of splendid French-themed music, not all of it from the standard repertoire, which drew a full house and was conducted by the young French conductor Marie...
BBC Proms The Marriage of Figaro Credit Chris Christodoulou 20
Glyndebourne, already in its tenth decade, has been visiting the Proms since 1961, when Don Giovanni received its Proms première. The following year it was Così fan tutte and, in...