I was going to pick one prom a week that looked particularly exciting, but the programme for the next seven days is so brilliant that it is hard to know where to start, so I’ve gone for three. Follow the links – all can be heard live on the internet or radio and some are on the television too.
Sunday 14th July, 7.30
A programme of ballet music ending with Stravinsky’s revolutionary Rite of Spring played on instruments that would have been used at the time. Listen for the Bassoon straining in its top register at the beginning! The first half is four ballet excerpts from the Baroque to the late nineteenth century
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/2013/july-14/14556
Tuesday 16th July, 7.00
An old but brilliant warhorse – Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto alongside a new piece by David Matthew’s and the energetic ‘Inextinguishable’ fourth symphony by Nielsen (an early C20 Danish composer of whom I am particularly fond)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms/whats-on/2013/july-16/14560
Friday 19th July, 10.00
This is an excerpt from Stockhausen’s opera Wednesday from the cycle Licht. The ‘World Parliament’ performed by Birmingham’s Ex Cathedra was the absolute highlight of a performance of this work in Birmingham last summer. It is totally bonkers but fascinating and there are some gorgeous moment. The rest of the opera (not being done tonight) also involves helicopters and camels …