Proms
BBC Proms: McCarthy, Bournemouth SO, Wigglesworth review - spring-heeled varietyTuesday, 22 July 2025
It started like Sunday afternoon band concert on a seaside promenade, a massive ensemble playing it light. But while there were several too many Shostakovich pops, the Ravel concerto and Walton symphony ahead sailed for deeper waters, And the... Read more... |
BBC Proms: Batsashvili, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ryan Wigglesworth review - grief and gloryMonday, 28 July 2025
This Prom began in sombre and melancholic shades of grey. Then, as her encore, the superb Georgian pianist Mariam Batsashvili launched into Liszt’s Paganini étude, “La Campanella”, and bells of long-awaited joy rang around the Royal Albert Hall.... Read more... |
BBC Proms: First Night, Batiashvili, BBCSO, Oramo review - glorious Vaughan WilliamsSaturday, 19 July 2025
The auditorium and arena were packed – and the stage even more so, bursting at the seams with players and singers: the perfect set-up for a First Night of the Proms. This is traditionally an opportunity to programme a large-scale choral work, and... Read more... |
Prom 71, Seong-Jin Cho review - refined Romantic journeysFriday, 13 September 2024
Out of emergencies may come revelations. Sir András Schiff has broken his leg, and we wish him a super-speedy recovery. At the Proms, his promised Art of Fugue will have to wait. Korean pianist Seong-Jin Cho, a past winner of the Chopin Prize,... Read more... |
Prom 68, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Garsington Opera review - eerie beauty sometimes faintly glitteringWednesday, 11 September 2024
Some operas shine in the vasts of the Albert Hall, others seem to creep back into their beautiful shells. Glyndebourne’s Carmen blazed, though Bizet never intended his opera for a big theatre, while Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, despite an... Read more... |
Proms 63-65, Choral Day review - from Harris to Handel/Mozart via Alabama, with loveMonday, 09 September 2024
The Proms’ Indian summer of big visiting orchestras is over – and what a parade it’s been – but renewal hit on the last Saturday before the Last Night with a rainbow of choral concerts, from the 26 voices of The Sixteen (yes, counter-intuitive, I... Read more... |
Prom 62, Mahler's Sixth Symphony, Bavarian RSO, Rattle review - sound over momentumSaturday, 07 September 2024
Mahler’s Sixth is one of those apocalyptic megaliths that shouldn’t be approached too often by audiences or conductors. It’s been a constant in Simon Rattle’s treasury since 1989, when he first recorded it with his City of Birmingham Symphony... Read more... |
Prom 61, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Rattle review - Bruckner without tearsFriday, 06 September 2024
Hot on the glittering heels of the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko, Sir Simon Rattle brought another stellar German outfit to the Proms, bearing the gift of a Bruckner symphony in the composer’s 200th birthday year. With his (relatively) new... Read more... |
Prom 58, Orchestre de Paris, Mäkelä review - risky reinvention pays off in partWednesday, 04 September 2024
Never mind the Last Night, it’s always the preceding Proms weeks which lead us through different rooms of a dream palace as visiting orchestras succeed one another. This year has taken on an almost hallucinatory quality as three great conductors –... Read more... |
Prom 55, Ólafsson, Berlin Philharmonic, Petrenko review - stealth and sweep from the greatestMonday, 02 September 2024
Is it because the British are wary of national sentiment from a genius that this performance of Má vlast (My Homeland) is the only major London offering in Smetana’s 200th anniversary year? Supple movement, emotional range and unerring climaxes from... Read more... |
Prom 54, Ma, Ax, Kavakos review - exquisite display of humility and communicationSunday, 01 September 2024
In their lyrical, often intensely moving afternoon concert at the Proms, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos demonstrated such seamless communication that at points it was tempting to imagine that even their heartbeats were in sync. It’s an... Read more... |
Prom 52, Carmen, Glyndebourne Festival review - fine-tuning a masterpieceFriday, 30 August 2024
If you ever doubted that Bizet’s Carmen, 150 years young next year, is one of the greatest operas of all time, this performance would have changed your mind. Among the four principals only Rihab Chaieb’s utterly convincing, consistent protagonist... Read more... |
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