Nu-classical forager
Prom 4 and 5, July 20
Sparking off the Vaughan Williams anniversary year, the Folk Day recognises
the English composer’s love of traditional music. But there’s folk from
Romania and Moldova as well as Britain, and the contemporary side of the
genre also shows its face with sets by Bella Hardy, Martin Simpson and
Bellowhead.
Prom 20 and 21, August 2
It’s hard to imagine Nicholas Kenyon scheduling an entire day of the iconic
experimentalist Karlheinz Stockhausen, who died last December. But here are
some of his most uncompromising (and fascinating) works, including Gruppen–
three orchestras, ranged around the audience – and, for the late-night Prom,
the eerie sonorities of Stimmung.
Prom 30, August 8
Kristjan Järvi, the youngest member of the Järvi clan (both father, Neeme, and
brother, Paavel, are also maestros), swings to the beat of Adams, Ellington
and Bernstein in this late-night session.
Prom 44, August 18
The formidable pianist Nicolas Hodges plays the UK premiere of Elliott
Carter’s puckish Soundings, another astonishing achievement for
the composer who turns 100 in December. The question is: will he be there to
hear it?
Prom 59, August 30
No contemporary music lover can afford to ignore the soundscapes of the
Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg, whose massive Seht die Sonne is
scored for the same forces as Mahler’s Ninth.
The first-timer
Prom 13, July 27
Call it a chronic case of self-marketing if you like, but the Doctor Who Prom
offers a great chance to hook the family into the concert experience. The
programme is hinged around a new suite by Murray Gold of key themes from the
series; the remainder, we’re promised, all relates to “time and space”.
Prom 16, July 29
The best things about the Hallé’s 150th-anniversary Prom has to be the return
of Dutch violinist Janine Jansen, who plays Bruch’s Violin Concerto No 1.
Prom 37, August 13
There’s no repeat this year of the infectious antics of Gustavo Dudamel’s
Simón BolÍvar Youth Orchestra, but the frizzy-haired Venezuelan is returning
with one of his other bands, the Gothenburg Symphony, and they’re playing
one of his party pieces, the Symphonie fantastique by Berlioz.
Prom 53, August 25
No tricks, no gimmicks, just a wonderful programme of Tchaikovsky (the Fifth
Symphony, riddled with guilt and passion) and Prokofiev (excerpts from Romeo
and Juliet), with Daniele Gatti conducting the Royal Philharmonic.
Prom 68, September 5
Vladmir Jurowski conducts the resurgent London Philharmonic in an all-Russian
programme. The familiar bit is the beguiling Firebird by Stravinsky,
but there’s no way that classical newcomers could be put off by
Rimsky-Korsakov’s splendid opera Kashchey the Immortal, which
covers the same plot.
The glamour seeker
Prom 18, July 31
Glyndebourne decamps from Sussex to its annual SW7 berth, and the star-power
quotient is high. For this semi-staged performance of Monteverdi’s L’in-coronazione
di Poppea Emmanuelle Haïm is in the pit and the luscious Danielle de
Niese plays the scheming heroine, although my top tip is Wolfgang
Ablinger-Sperrhacke’s turn as Arnalta, the nurse. Crazy name, crazy drag
act.
Prom 38, August 14
Daniel Barenboim, the closest thing that classical music can offer to Nelson
Mandela, takes his inspirational Israeli and Arab youth orchestra, the
West-Eastern Divan, back to the Proms, this time with a contrasting
programme of Haydn, Schoenberg and Brahms.
Prom 58, August 29
For some reason the Brits have always been allergic to Lorin Maazel – his
paying for his own terrible opera to be put on at Covent Garden didn’t help
– but the splashy American maestro’s Prom with the New York Philharmonic
offers a rare chance to hear one of the world’s best orchestras in the UK.
Prom 60, August 31
He’s facing the growing wrath of critics incensed at his lounge-lizard antics,
but I doubt any of it affects the Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang, whose
army of devoted fans will no doubt be converging on the Albert Hall for a
prestigious recital. Watch out, too, for nine-year-old Marc Yu, a guest star
with a Schubert fantasia.
Prom 64, September 2
Liverpool lad Simon Rattle is probably most excited about taking the Berlin
Philharmonic back to his home city this summer; the good news is that the
same programme also comes to the Proms: Messiaen’s audacious Turangalîla
Symphony and Wagner’s Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan
und Isolde.
The seen-it-all veteran
Prom 1, July 18
What used to be predictable during Nick Kenyon’s regime as Proms director –
cur-tainraiser plus choral spectacular – has been rebooted by his successor,
Roger Wright, as a fantastic potpourri of festivities, with star power
(Karita Mattila, singing Strauss’s Four Last Songs) alongside
rarities, an Elliott Carter premiere and, to finish, Scriabin’s barnstorming
Poem of Ecstasy.
Prom Chamber Music 2, July 28
Nothing’s predictable in the world of early music when Robert Hollingworth and
his crack vocal team, I Fagiolini, take on the splendours of the Renaissance
and Baroque. For their Chamber Prom they turn the dial to Monteverdi, aided
by the Barokksolistene.
Prom 24, August 4
Ethel Smyth – mainly remembered as the angry suffragette who conducted her March
of the Women with her toothbrush while in Holloway Prison – gets her
moment in the spotlight as the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra unearth her
Concerto for Horn and Violin. Few will be humming it on their way in.
Prom 48, August 22
Fancy a spot of time-travelling? Markus Stenz, the chief conductor of
Cologne’s Gürzenich Orchestra, can help: he offers up Mahler’s Fifth
Symphony alongside the works with which it shared the bill at its premiere:
a Beethoven overture and Schubert songs.
Prom 70, September 7
Messiaen’s titanic opera St Francis of Assisi runs for six
luminous hours with little hope of a plot. It’s really more a meditation on
the life of the bird-loving saint than a narrative – and yet it offers some
searingly beautiful music along the way. One for those with strong
constitutions; a religious sensibility as acute as Messiaen’s would help,
too.
How to book: 0845 4015040, or online at bbc.co.uk/proms
