BBC Music Magazine’s Proms Picks
Members of our editorial team name the concerts they won’t want to miss this year
Proms at Sage Gateshead 22 July
Missy Mazzoli, Mozart and Brahms
I’ve gone for the evening Prom at Sage Gateshead on Saturday 22 July, featuring the Royal Northern Sinfonia and its principal conductor Dinis Sousa. The programme is a very tasty one: it pairs possibly my favourite Brahms symphony (the sunny No. 2) with possibly my favourite Mozart piano concerto (the moody, dramatic No. 20). But I’m most drawn by the prospect of hearing American composer Missy Mazzoli’s Sinfonia (for Orbiting Spheres) performed live. This ten-minute symphonic poem is, in the composer’s own words, ‘music in the shape of a solar system, a collection of rococo loops that twist around each other within a larger orbit’. Hearing it is a mindexpanding experience – and, within the wonderful timber-clad acoustics at Gateshead’s Sage One, I’m sure it will be only more so.
Steve Wright Content producer
Prom 36 11 August 2023
A Space Odyssey
György Ligeti’s 100th birthday is marked in numerous ways at this year’s Proms, but no tribute would be complete without acknowledging the powerful partnership between his signature polyphonic sounds and Stanley Kubrick’s mind-bending visuals in
2001: A Space Odyssey. If ever a cinematic director understood the power of music, it was Kubrick – and the invaluable role of orchestral and choral repertoire in his science fiction classic is here celebrated not only with Ligeti’s Requiem and Lux aeterna but also, after the interval, with Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, used to magnificent effect in Kubrick’s film as the sun rises over a pre-historic Earth. Joining the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Edward Gardner will be the choirs of the LPO and the Royal Northern College of Music and the Edvard Grieg Kor, plus soprano and mezzo soloists Jennifer France and Clare Presland.
Charlotte Smith Editor
Prom 40 Monday 14 August
Brahms and Dora Pejačević
I have recently been rattling on to anyone who will listen about Dora Pejačević’s Symphony F sharp minor, as recorded last year by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sakari Oramo. So imagine my delight that, in the centenary of her death, the same forces will be giving her masterpiece its Proms debut. The symphony’s belligerent opening and final bars reveal a Croatian composer who was not afraid to bang her fists, while in between we hear music that dances Dvořák-like but also sweeps us along with the melodic grace of, say, Brahms or Tchaikovsky. Now add to the mix evocative horn calls, lugubrious woodwind solos and, in the third movement, a stirring, Schubertian trombone motif, and you have a superb evening in store.
Jeremy Pound Deputy Editor
Prom 46 19 August
Manchester Collective: Neon
This late night show, Neon, marks Manchester Collective’s second visit to the Proms (2021 was their debut) and the typically electrifying programme of works by Steve Reich, David Lang, Hannah Peel, Oliver Leith and Ben Nobuto perfectly showcases the group’s adventurous streak and commitment to new music. The Nobuto and Peel pieces were commissioned by the Collective and received premieres in smaller venues in the UK, so I’m looking forward to experiencing them in the more cavernous Albert Hall. Size matters not, though, as whatever the stage, the Manchester Collective will always cast its spell and draw you into its soundworld. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered an ensemble that performs with such verve, grit, raw musicality and unmitigated joy. For the audience, it’s infectious.
Michael Beek Reviews editor