BBC Proms Season 66
The World's Greatest Classical Music Festival. The BBC Proms is a classical music festival held every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and in recent years has explored an innovative series of Proms around the UK with concerts in all four nations. Its aim: to bring the best in classical music to the widest possible audience, which remains true to founder-conductor Henry Wood’s original vision in 1895. Whether you are a classical connoisseur or think classical music isn’t for you, there is something for everyone in the eight-week stretch of concerts.
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BBC Proms
1947
The World's Greatest Classical Music Festival. The BBC Proms is a classical music festival held every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and in recent years has explored an innovative series of Proms around the UK with concerts in all four nations. Its aim: to bring the best in classical music to the widest possible audience, which remains true to founder-conductor Henry Wood’s original vision in 1895. Whether you are a classical connoisseur or think classical music isn’t for you, there is something for everyone in the eight-week stretch of concerts.
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BBC Proms Season 66 Full Episode Guide
Part 1: Mark Simpson: sparks (c2 mins), BBC Commission, World Premiere Suk: Towards a New Life (6 mins) Delius: Songs of Farewell (18 mins) Verdi: Un ballo in maschera – ‘Forse la soglia attinse … Ma se m’è forza perderti’ (5 mins) Massenet: Werther – ‘Pourquoi me réveiller?’ (3 mins) Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor (25 mins) Puccini: Tosca – ‘E lucevan le stelle’ (3 mins) Puccini: Turandot – ‘Nessun dorma’ (3 mins) Intermission Part 2: John Williams: Olympic Fanfare and Theme (5 mins) Dvorák: Overture 'Carnival' (9 mins) Shostakovich: The Gadfly – Romance (6 mins) Leoncavallo: Mattinata (3 mins) Lara: Granada (3 mins) Rodgers: Carousel – ‘You’ll never walk alone’ (4 mins) Henry Wood: Fantasia on British Sea-Songs (20 mins) Elgar: Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major ('Land of Hope and Glory') (8 mins) Parry, orch. Elgar: Jerusalem (4 mins) Traditional: The National Anthem (2 mins) Nicola Benedetti: Violin Joseph Calleja: Tenor BBC Symphony Chorus BBC Symphony Orchestra Jirí Belohlávek, Conductor Join us for the year’s biggest musical party with two very special guests. Since taking the nation by storm as 2004’s BBC Young Musician of the Year, Scottishborn Nicola Benedetti has enhanced her reputation as one of Britain’s most innovative and creative young violinists. We also welcome Joseph Calleja, the Maltese tenor who sings with the grace and elegance of the voices of a bygone era. A brace of Czechs acknowledges the sterling work of the BBC SO’s outgoing chief, while contributions from 2012’s anniversary composers include Delius’s valedictory settings of Walt Whitman. More familiar home-grown music brings down the curtain in time-honoured fashion
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Haydn - Symphony No. 104 in D major, 'London' (30 mins) Interlude Richard Strauss - An Alpine Symphony (50 mins) Encore - Johann Strauss - Voices of Spring Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Bernard Haitink, Conductor The doyen (edit: dean) of European conductors presents favourite repertoire with an ensemble closely associated with the history and traditions of orchestral music. The last of Haydn’s symphonies, written while he was living in London, proved an instant critical and commercial success. Not so the Strauss, part-elegy for Mahler, part-celebration of the composer himself. Mingling childhood memories of a schoolboy mountaineering expedition with a deeper vision of man’s place on earth, the work was received rather sniffily in Britain until dedicated interpreters such as Bernard Haitink arrived to change all that.
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Howells - Hymnus Paradisi (44 mins) Interlude Elgar - Symphony No. 1 in A flat major (53 mins) Miah Persson: soprano Andrew Kennedy: tenor BBC Symphony Chorus London Philharmonic Choir BBC Symphony Orchestra Martyn Brabbins, Conductor Following his triumphant conducting of Havergal Brian’s ‘The Gothic’ Symphony last year, Martyn Brabbins brings another British magnum opus to the Proms. Herbert Howells wrote Hymnus Paradisi ‘for the drawer’ in the wake of the tragically early death of his son. Only years later was he persuaded to release a finished score to the public. After this light-filled memorial from a composer closely identified with Gloucester Cathedral, we revisit the masterpiece that, in 1908 – the year of the first London Olympics – announced a Worcester man’s arrival as perhaps the greatest of British symphonists.
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John Wilson Orchestra Maida Vale Singers John Wilson: conductor After last year’s celebration of the Hollywood screen musical, John Wilson and his high-octane orchestra – whose technicoloured performances, according to one critic, offer ‘the auditory equivalent of a steam-clean’ – present a tribute to the composers and arrangers responsible for creating the Broadway Sound – among them such legendary tunesmiths as Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Vincent Youmans, Richard Rodgers and Frank Loesser. With a cast of leading soloists, the concert includes excerpts from Show Boat, No, No, Nanette, On Your Toes, Kiss Me, Kate and Annie Get Your Gun.
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Wagner - Parsifal – Prelude (Act 3) and Good Friday Music (20 mins) Berg - Violin Concerto (25 mins) Bach - Adagio from Violin Sonata in A minor Interlude R. Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier – suite (22 mins) Ravel - La valse (12 mins) Frank Peter Zimmermann, Violin Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester Daniele Gatti, Conductor (Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester (Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra) is a youth orchestra based in Vienna, Austria, founded in 1986 by conductor Claudio Abbado.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mahler_Youth_Orchestra http://www.gmjo.at/Home/tabid/39/language/en-US/Default.aspx One of the great youth orchestras is back, and in distinguished company. Daniele Gatti begins with the weighty tread and unmatched radiance of music he has been exploring at Bayreuth. Frank Peter Zimmermann plays one of the 20th century’s most eloquent violin concertos. Strauss conjures up a bittersweet Vienna of young love, mid-life melancholy and abundant waltz tunes, while Ravel’s apotheosis of that dance form may or may not have been intended as a metaphor for the fate of European civilisation as its unstoppable whirling reaches critical mass.
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Sir Arthur Sullivan The Yeomen of the Guard Leigh Melrose baritone (Lt Sir Richard Cholmondeley) Andrew Kennedy tenor (Colonel Fairfax) Lisa Milne soprano (Elsie Maynard) Victoria Simmonds mezzo-soprano (Phoebe Meryll) Felicity Palmer mezzo-soprano (Dame Carruthers) Mary Bevan soprano (Kate) Mark Richardson bass-baritone (Sergeant Meryll) Tom Randle tenor (Leonard Meryll) Mark Stone baritone (Jack Point) Toby Stafford-Allen baritone (Wilfred Shadbolt) BBC Singers BBC Concert Orchestra Jane Glover, Conductor Martin Duncan, Stage Director Recent Proms seasons have seen a liberal sprinkling of complete Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, under such distinguished conductors as Jane Glover and the late Charles Mackerras. With its historic London setting, the grandest, most emotionally engaging of the Savoy operas is a must for 2012.
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Weber - Der Freischütz – Overture (10 mins) Mahler - Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (17 mins) Interlude Tchaikovsky - Manfred (57 mins) Alice Coote - Mezzo-soprano London Philharmonic Orchestra Vladimir Jurowski, Conductor After the overture to the first important German Romantic opera, Weber’s take on the folk legend of a marksman’s contract with the devil, featured artist Alice Coote returns to tackle Mahler’s folk-influenced song-cycle, inspired by the conclusion of an unhappy love affair. Tchaikovsky’s Manfred, a full-length fusion of tone-poem and symphonic form, makes passionate use of Byron’s dramatic poem with supernatural elements which held so many 19th-century artists in thrall. This powerfully driven masterpiece is a favourite of tonight’s conductor. Charles Hazlewood, Host
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Symphony No. 4 in F minor (30 mins) Symphony No. 5 in D major (39 mins) Interlude Symphony No. 6 in E minor (31 mins) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Andrew Manze: conductor Over the next few seasons Andrew Manze directs all nine Vaughan Williams symphonies with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, of which he is Associate Guest Conductor: "Vaughan Williams is one of those composers some people have fixed ideas about … I’m on a bit of a mission to rehabilitate him in people’s minds as an important figure in the musicmaking of this country." Tonight he tackles three differently powerful works of the 1930s and 1940s, which, whatever their own emotional back stories, may still be seen as chronicling our national life in troubled times.
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Dvorák - Symphony No. 9 in E minor, 'From the New World' (45 mins) Interlude Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man (4 mins) Joan Tower - Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman (3 mins) Villa-Lobos - Momoprécoce (28 mins) Ginastera - Estancia – suite (12 mins) Edu Lobo - Pé de Vento from Suíte Popular Brasileira, orch. Nelson Ayres (3 mins) - Encore Nelson Freire, Piano São Paulo Symphony Orchestra Marin Alsop, Conductor Music from both American hemispheres features tonight. First the masterpiece through which the Bohemian Dvorák, resident in New York, sought to establish an American musical identity, a symphony exuding nostalgia for his own native woods and fields. Later comes Copland’s iconic Fanfare and highlights from Ginastera’s best-known score. Joan Tower, whose childhood was spent partly in Bolivia, celebrates ‘women who take risks and are adventurous’, while distinguished Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire returns to the Proms to play one of Villa-Lobos’s most attractive compositions. Katie Derham, Hostess
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From the Royal Albert Hall, Mark Armstrong conducts the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, featuring Britain's best young jazz musicians in a wide-ranging set of jazz favourites. The programme includes Duke Ellington's The Queen's Suite to mark the Diamond Jubilee year and a new commission by saxophonist Tim Garland. Presented by Petroc Trelawny.
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A celebration of Ivor Novello Remember such time-honoured favourites as 'We'll gather lilacs'? Tonight we acknowledge that patriotic First World War plea to 'keep the home fires burning' in a tribute to a silent-movie actor, West End playwright, composer and star of a string of stage musicals hugely popular in their day. Ivor Novello, the most consistently successful composer of British musicals before the advent of Andrew Lloyd Webber, nowadays tends to be unjustly neglected. Sir Mark Elder is a committed advocate, as is tonight’s master of ceremonies, Simon Callow. Sophie Bevan, Soprano Toby Spence, Tenor Simon Callow, Narrator Hallé Orchestra Sir Mark Elder, Conductor
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Wagner -Tristan and Isolde – Prelude (Act 1) (9 mins) James MacMillan - Credo (c25 mins), BBC co-commission, World Premiere INTERLUDE Bruckner - Symphony No. 6 in A major (55 mins) Manchester Chamber Choir (Proms debut) Northern Sinfonia Chorus (Proms debut) Rushley Singers (Proms debut) BBC Philharmonic Juanjo Mena, Conductor Juanjo Mena presents a major world premiere before offering his acclaimed reading of a sonorous yet dangerously eruptive Bruckner symphony. First though, there’s the emblematic love of Tristan and Isolde, expressed through music dark in sound and revolutionary in harmony. James MacMillan’s works have enjoyed regular success at the Proms since the first performance of The Confession of Isobel Gowdie was given here in 1990. As with Bruckner, MacMillan’s communicative power is often associated with expressions of faith, and the unveiling of Credo, has been keenly awaited.
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Morten Frank Larsen, Bass-Baritone Julius Foo, Treble Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Pwll Coch, Caerdydd Ysgol Gynradd Gymunedol Gymraeg, Llantrisant Ysgol Gynradd Dolau, Llanharan Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg, Rhydaman National Youth Choir of Wales Aelwyd y Waun Ddyfal Musicians from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama BBC National Chorus of Wales BBC National Orchestra of Wales National Youth Orchestra of Wales Kristjan Järvi,Conductor Thomas Kiemle, Stage Director Less a religious work than a theatrical happening, Bernstein’s Mass receives its first complete Proms performance, conducted by one of its most ardent champions, and supported by a spectrum of talented Welsh children and adult musicians. Using a mix of highbrow and vernacular styles, Bernstein created a rich, quintessentially American score that has recently begun to emerge as a modern classic. Petroc Trelawney, Host In English and Latin
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Varèse - Tuning Up (5 mins) Nico Muhly - Gait (20 mins), BBC Commission, London Premiere Interlude Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphony (77 mins) Anna Meredith - HandsFree (12 mins) Cynthia Millar - ondes martenot Joanna MacGregor - piano National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain Vasily Petrenko, Conductor Messiaen’s ecstatic, Eastern-influenced celebration of love is framed by a BBC commission from one of America’s rising talents and Anna Meredith’s acclaimed tour de force of clapping, stamping, singing and body percussion, first performed earlier this year by NYO members and commissioned for the PRS for Music Foundation's New Music 20x12 programme as part of the Cultural Olympiad. Varèse’s Tuni
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Wagner - Siegfried Idyll (18 mins) Interlude Bruckner - Symphony No. 8 in C minor (80 mins) (ed. Nowak, 1955) BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Donald Runnicles, Conductor In their first appearance this season, Donald Runnicles and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra present two works by composers for whom he has a particular affinity. Wagner’s gift to his wife, Cosima, is presented in its pared down original orchestration, much as she would have heard it that Christmas morning in 1870. The Royal Albert Hall is an ideal venue for Bruckner’s symphonic revelations. The Eighth Symphony, arguably the greatest of them all, remains a huge and glorious challenge.
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Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (16 mins) Ireland - These Things Shall Be (22 mins) Delius - The Walk to the Paradise Garden (10 mins) Walton - Belshazzar's Feast (36 mins) Jonathan Lemalu: bass-baritone London Brass BBC Symphony Chorus BBC National Chorus of Wales BBC National Orchestra of Wales Tadaaki Otaka, Conductor Tadaaki Otaka, a notable enthusiast of British music, opens with Vaughan Williams’s much loved classic before revisiting a BBC commission that has fallen into neglect in the half-century since its composer’s death: Ireland’s These Things Shall Be is a mini-oratorio with a utopian text. The massed choirs and the commanding bass baritone of former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Jonathan Lemalu return after the interval to animate Walton’s brazen Old Testament tale, but first we hear from another anniversary composer, here at his most poignant.
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Wallace & Gromit appear in a new Proms adventure, before a screening of A Matter of Loaf and Death – plus classical favourites.
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Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, 'Choral' (77 mins) Anna Samuil soprano Waltraud Meier mezzo-soprano René Pape bass National Youth Choir of Great Britain West–Eastern Divan Orchestra Daniel Barenboim conductor About this event Daniel Barenboim’s Beethoven cycle reaches its climax with a youthful take on the traditional annual Proms performance of the Ninth, perhaps the richest, most provocative statement in Western art music. An impressive team of soloists joins the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra to project the finale’s inclusive vision of hope, reconciliation and hard-won triumph. What better to mark today’s opening of the London 2012 Olympics than Beethoven’s ultimate hymn to universal brotherhood?
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Beethoven Symphony No. 8 in F major (25 mins) Pierre Boulez Anthèmes 2 (25 mins) INTERVAL Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A major (35 min) Michael Barenboim violin IRCAM live electronics West–Eastern Divan Orchestra Daniel Barenboim conductor Listen again BBC Proms: 2012 Season: Proms Plus: 24/07/2012Discover the music More from Radio 3 Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 Delve into Beethoven's paean to rhythm. . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beethoven Pierre Boulez Daniel Barenboim -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beethoven - Symphony No 8 (Excerpt) BBC Proms 2012: Beethoven: Symphony No 7 in A major (Excerpt)Programme notes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this event Daneil Barenboim continues his survey of Beethoven – whose music, he believes, 'speaks to all people'. Tonight, two Beethoven symphonies of dancing athleticism and universal appeal frame one of Pierre Boulez's mesmerising extensions of earlier works: Anthèmes 2 is scored for violin and live electronics and its serenely beautiful expressivity may come as a surprise. Beethoven's ebullient Seventh, famously dubbed 'the apotheosis of dance', was the last piece conducted by Proms founder-conductor Henry Wood.
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Daniel Barenboim's complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies reaches its mid-point, as he conducts his ensemble of young Arab and Israeli musicians, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, in a programme that includes both the Pastoral Symphony and that most iconic of all orchestral masterpieces, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Alongside, Barenboim programmes two short works by Pierre Boulez - Memoriale for flute and ensemble, and Messagesquisse, which showcases the virtuosity of the orchestra's cello section
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Daniel Barenboim and his youthful ensemble relish the energy of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony before tackling the 'Eroica', one of the irrefutable mould-breakers of classical music. Between these peaks, Boulez's Dialogue de l'ombre double introduces another kind of theatre, the clarinet's electronic double becoming more 'real' than the soloist physically present.
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Daniel Barenboim directs his first Beethoven symphony cycle in London – and becomes the first conductor since Henry Wood in 1942 to survey all nine symphonies in a single Proms season. His dynamic West–Eastern Divan Orchestra – famously bringing together Arab and Israeli players to form less 'an orchestra for peace' than 'an orchestra against ignorance' – goes far beyond the symbolic in its goal of building bridges through music. Expect further fireworks as Barenboim pairs Beethoven's revolutionary classics with music by one of today's senior musical figures, the ever-innovative composer-conductor Pierre Boulez, with whom Barenboim first collaborated in the mid-1960s
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Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel make their Proms debut in this free Late Night Prom, giving Handel's three Water Music suites and Fireworks Music the big-band, period-instrument treatment. Niquet directs an expanded group of up to 80 musicians to evoke resplendent royal occasions on the River Thames and in Green Park, offering a new slant on London's favourite part pieces.
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Making his Proms debut as the BBC Philharmonic's Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena explores Strauss the impatient visionary, whose Also sprach Zarathustra was famously used on the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Strauss's Four Last Songs exude a sense of calm resignation suffused with autumn light. After the interval, a major UK premiere from Kaija Saariaho, whose own music is lit by atmosphere and mood. Inspired by the autobiography of Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish film director, Laterna magica includes sections in which players whisper extracts over an instrumental murmur. To conclude, the hard-won luminescence of Sibelius's (unintended) symphonic farewell.
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Mark-Anthony Turnage - Canon Fever (3 mins) Elgar - Overture 'Cockaigne (In London Town)' (15 mins) Delius - Sea Drift (25 mins) Tippett - Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles (16 mins) Elgar - Coronation Ode (33 mins)
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