The BBC Promenade Concerts are often called the world’s greatest music festival – and it’s probably true. Founded in 1895 by the conductor Henry Wood, the Proms’ intention was simple and strong: to offer the best music to the greatest number of people, at low prices and in egalitarian surroundings. That hasn’t changed. Promming tickets cost £8 each to stand at the feet of the world’s great musicians. All the Proms are live on BBC Radio 3, then available on the Sounds app, and a selection will be televised.
Yet the Proms queue ain’t what it used to be. The old ritual, where you’d line up for hours and chat with fellow promenaders over your Marmite sandwiches, has mostly been overtaken by technology. Now you can book promming tickets in the morning, then queue for entry to the arena or gallery 90 minutes before start time, or pick up your number in the queue earlier at door 12. For seats, booking opens on 18 May.
The Marmite sarnies, however, are in this year’s concert programmes. The two biggest anniversary strands are for singularly “Marmite” composers: the bicentenary of Anton Bruckner’s birth, and the centenary of Gabriel Fauré’s death. Fauré, that subtle and seductive fin-de-siècle Parisian, has even made it onto the programme for the Last Night.
Bruckner is his polar opposite, composer of symphonies that some call “cathedrals of sound” and others (notably Brahms) “boa-constrictors”. A good conductor can make them awe-inspiring, and he has the best possible chance with two of this year’s visiting orchestras: the Berlin Philharmonic under the mesmerising Kirill Petrenko and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra with the great-hearted Simon Rattle.
The Royal Albert Hall inevitably suits large works best – try Britten’s War Requiem, Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie or Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. More superstar orchestras include the Czech Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim, Bach Collegium Japan, and the Orchestre de Paris with the celebrated Klaus Mäkelä.
There is opera from Glyndebourne – Carmen, no less – and, for the first time, from Garsington, which brings Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Yet the space is also surprisingly welcoming for occasional recitals and chamber music: Beethoven trios with Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma, or pianist András Schiff in Bach’s The Art of Fugue.
As for new commissions, 23 premieres are on offer, ranging from top international figures like Eric Whitacre, Jacob Collier, Thomas Adès and Anna Clyne to many lesser-known young composers. It’s not just an opportunity for them; it’s where we might spot the sounds of tomorrow.
Last year, according to the Independent Society of Musicians, 186 male composers were represented in the Proms, yet just 33 female. This year, around one third of the commissionees are women, and there are some significant historical presences, among them Augusta Holmès, Grace Williams and Clara Schumann.
The female conductors, however, you can count on some of your fingers… Still, Elim Chan, the first woman to win the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition in 2014, conducts opening night for the first time. Concerts out of London are similarly a tad gestural, but there is a strong weekend at Gateshead’s The Glasshouse, plus events in Newport, Belfast, Bristol, Aberdeen and Nottingham.
Die-hard fans have been pearl-clutching, as always, over non-classical events in the series – there’s Florence “and the Machine” Welch and Sam Smith, among others – but perhaps there’s less outrage than usual. Since last year’s debacle when the BBC Singers narrowly escaped closure, maybe we’ve finally realised how lucky we are to have the Proms at all.
Here are a few highlights:
Opening Night
19 July, Royal Albert Hall (RAH)
Award-winning Elim Chan conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Includes Clara Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the starry soloist Isata Kanneh-Mason, plus Handel, Bruckner, Beethoven and the world premiere of Ben Nobuto’s Handel Sim.
Everybody Dance! The Sound of Disco
20 July, RAH
The BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Daniel Bartholemew-Poyser plays Diana Ross, Gloria Gaynor, Boney M and more. They’d better have a glitter-ball.
Proms at The Glasshouse, Gateshead
26-28 July
A packed weekend with highlights including among others the Royal Northern Sinfonia under Dinis Sousa with Alena Baeva performing Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, Elizabethan music with mezzo Ruby Hughes, and the Proms debut of multitalented songwriter Jordan Rakei.
Booking: 0191 443 4661 or boxoffice@theglasshouseicm.org
Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony
30 July, RAH
For Olivier Messiaen’s exhilarating paean to love sacred and profane, the BBC Philharmonic is conducted by Nicholas Collon with piano soloist Steven Osborne. First, the world premiere of Anna Clyne’s The Gorgeous Nothings, featuring The Swingles.
Sinfonia of London/John Wilson
4 August, RAH
There’s a massive buzz around conductor John Wilson and his Sinfonia of London. This all-American programme includes a Wynton Marsalis UK premiere, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and John Adams’ symphonic groundbreaker Harmonielehre.
Purcell’s The Fairy Queen
6 August, RAH
A rare early music Prom treat: an acclaimed staging by Mourad Merzouki of Purcell’s Shakespeare-based “restoration spectacular”. Paul Agnew conducts Les Arts Florissants and a thrilling cast of singers and dancers.
Proms Belfast: Parisian chamber music and song
11 August, 3pm, Ulster Hall
The Quatuor Van Kuijk, baritone James Atkinson and pianist Michael Pandya offer a rare chance to hear Augusta Holmès’s Les Heures and Fauré’s ecstatic song cycle La Bonne Chanson.
Booking: 02890 334 455 or customerservicesbwuh@waterfront.co.uk
Britten’s War Requiem
17 August, RAH
The London Symphony Orchestra under Antonio Pappano join three choirs and soloists Nataliya Romaniw (soprano), Allan Clayton (tenor) and Will Liverman (baritone) for this masterpiece of hope and unity.
Jamie Barton sings Mahler
24 August, RAH
American star mezzo-soprano Jamie Barton shines in Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder. Also, symphonies by Eastman and Sibelius, with the magnificent Dalia Stasevska conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
The BBC Singers at 100
25 August, 3pm, Bristol Beacon
The BBC Singers celebrate their centenary in a programme including, suitably enough, John Pickard’s Mass in Troubled Times.
Box office: 0117 203 4040 or hello@bristolbeacon.org
Czech Philharmonic
27 and 28 August, RAH
Jakub Hruša (the Royal Opera House’s incoming music director) conducts the velvet-toned Czech Philharmonic in two all-Czech feasts, including works by Dvořák and Vítězslava Kaprálová, Suk’s Asrael Symphony and Janaček’s Glagolitic Mass.
Berlin Philharmonic
31 August and 1 September, RAH
The Berlin Philharmonic with principal conductor Kirill Petrenko brings two concerts: the Schumann Piano Concerto with Vikingur Ólafsson and Smetana’s tone-poem cycle Ma Vlast; then Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony.
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
5 and 6 September, RAH
This sleek machine from Munich, with its new principal conductor Simon Rattle, performs Bruckner’s Symphony No 4 and the UK premiere of Thomas Adès’s Aquifer; the next night, it’s Mahler’s Sixth.
Chineke!
8 September, RAH
The Chineke! Orchestra spotlights music by underrepresented global-majority composers. They play Duke Ellington’s version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, Stewart Goodyear’s Callaloo with its composer as soloist, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 6, “Pathétique”. Andrew Gram conducts.
András Schiff plays The Art of Fugue
12 September, 10.15pm, RAH
The inimitable Hungarian pianist tackles JS Bach’s final, unfinished masterpiece whole. Schaghajegh Nosrati joins him in its “mirror” fugue.
Last Night of the Proms
14 September, RAH
Sakari Oramo conducts the annual jamboree, with highlights including Stephen Hough in Saint-Saëns’s “Egyptian” Piano Concerto, Fauré represented by his Pavane, and American soprano Angel Blue singing arias and… other, traditional things. Controversial – but if you can stand the tub-thumpy bits, the rest can be great fun. Tickets allocated by ballot.
General booking opens at 9am on Saturday. For Royal Albert Hall events, book via box office: 020 7070 4441 or via the BBC Proms website
