BBC Music Magazine’s Proms Picks
Members of our editorial team name the concerts they won’t be missing this season
Proms 15 & 17 30 & 31 July
A Bavarian double
I’d leap at the chance to see any concert performed by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and conductor Mariss Jansons. In reality, the closest I normally get to them is through their extraordinary recordings on BR Klassik. But the Bavarian collective is rewarding patient fans with two appearances this year after a six-year absence from the BBC Proms. With Beethoven’s Second and Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphonies providing the drama on night one, and Sibelius’s beautiful First Symphony, Strauss’s suite from Der Rosenkavalier and Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 (featuring the velvet tones of violinist Lisa Batiashvili) the following evening, it’ll surely be a London stopover to remember. Oliver Condy Editor
Prom 39 15 August
Get the picture?
One can just imagine a broad grin spreading across Proms director David Pickard’s face as he conjured up the clever double theme for this Prom from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Elim Chan. The first half is all about waves large and small, as we set out with Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture before enjoying the gentler ebb and flow of
Elgar’s Sea Pictures – courtesy of mezzo Catriona Morison, winner of the BBC
Cardiff Singer of the World 2017, who makes her Proms debut here. After the interval we continue the ‘gallery’ thread with the premiere of Errollyn Wallen’s This Frame Is Part of the Painting and Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. It’s a colourful programme that should hang together really rather well. Jeremy Pound Deputy editor
Prom 46 22 August
Brilliant Brummies
I don’t know if I’m more excited about the thrilling young talents taking centre stage – conductor Mirga Gra inyt -tyla and cellist Sheku Kanneh-mason – or the captivating programme for this Prom. Besides Elgar’s Cello Concerto, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra gives us Weinberg’s Third Symphony, marking the Soviet composer’s centenary. That 1950 work is a bit of a rarity on the concert stage, as is Dorothy Howell’s much earlier (1919) Lamia. Dubbed ‘the English Strauss’, Howell apparently tended Elgar’s grave at St Wulstan’s for years and was a favourite of Henry Wood. Her 12-minute tone poem opens the programme, which is completed by Knussen’s The Way to Castle Yonder.
Michael Beek Reviews editor
Prom 66 8 September
In the key of sea major
‘My faith is not in the church. It is in the earth,’ says John Luther Adams, whose vast choral work In the Name of the Earth will be given its European premiere at this year’s Proms. The experience of hearing his Pulitzer-prize-winning piece Become Ocean a few years ago was overwhelming, so I won’t waste the chance to hear this 2018 piece, a musical map of North America. An environmental activist who turned to composing, the American’s works portray the natural world with unique insight. And this promises to be a spectacular event, with more than 600 singers, we’re told, placed around the Albert Hall.
Rebecca Franks Managing editor
Prom 70 10 September
Greenwood branches out
Long gone are the days of Jonny Greenwood being known only for those shredding guitar riffs in Radiohead’s song Creep. He’s now a leading composer, and here curates his own Late Night Prom. A solo violin sonata by Biber kicks things off before we head full pelt into the 20th and 21st centuries. The premiere of Greenwood’s Horror vacui for the very precise instrumentation of 68 strings will be sure to raise an eyebrow, with its simulation of electronic sounds using acoustic instruments. The pairing of Greenwood with his musical idol Krzysztof Penderecki is nothing new – the two have collaborated before, as have Greenwood and Steve Reich, whose contemplative minimalist work Pulse is also on the programme. It’s bound to be a whirlwind. Freya Parr Editorial assistant