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BBC Proms

Season 41 • Episode 1 • First Night of the Proms

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BBC Proms Season 41, Episode 1: First Night of the Proms

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Live from the Royal Albert Hall , London Part 1: Janacek Sinfonietta Sir John Pritchard , chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, launches the 93rd season of Henry Wood Promenade Concerts with one of this century's most festive works. Janacek's last and greatest orchestral work grew from a commission for a fanfare into a massive celebration of the newly-independent Czech nation. Watch BBC Proms Season 41, Episode 1 First Night of the Proms in HD free online. Enjoy high-quality streaming of BBC Proms Season 41, Episode 1 and share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Episodes

14 episodes
1

First Night of the Proms

Live from the Royal Albert Hall , London Part 1: Janacek Sinfonietta Sir John Pritchard , chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, launches the 93rd season of Henry Wood Promenade Concerts with one of this century's most festive works. Janacek's last and greatest orchestral work grew from a commission for a fanfare into a massive celebration of the newly-independent Czech nation.
2

First Night of the Proms

Part 2: Tippett A Child of our Time Sir Michael Tippett 's oratorio is a compassionate outcry against injustice and persecution, enhanced by the use of negro spirituals. Sir Michael himself describes the work as a passion about man 'whose god has left the light of the heavens for the dark of the collective unconscious.' Faye Robinson (soprano) Cynthia Clarey (mezzo-soprano) Neil Jenkins (tenor) Robert Lloyd (bass) BBC Singers
3

Omnibus at the Proms

BBCl's first visit to the 93rd season of Henry Wood Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall , London features a traditional popular Saturday night programme. including music from the Viennese waltz kings. Jane Glover introduces a Programme that mixes Dohnanyi's delightful Variations on a Nursery Song (at one time a regular Prom favourite), with the polkas and waltzes of Franz Lehar and Johann Strauss (Son). With Philip Fowke (piano) The Halle Orchestra leader PAN HON LEE conducted by Bryden Thomson After opening with Sullivan's Overture di Ballo, Bryden Thomson and Philip Fowke talk to Jane Glover about the evening's music making.
4

Live from the Proms

Schoenberg's 'Gurrelieder' conducted by Pierre Boulez Gurra is the name of a Danish castle. Schoenberg, later to become the self-confessed 'bogeyman of 20th-century music' composed his massive, romantic work Songs of Gurra on near operatic scale - a kind of post-Wagnerian Tristan and Isolde. Jessye Norman (soprano) Elizabeth Lawrence (mezzo) Kenneth Riegel (tenor) Walter Raffeiner (tenor) John Brocheler (bass) Gerd Nienstadt (baritone) BBC Singers BBC Symphony Chorus Brighton Festival Chorus Royal Choral Society Philharmonia Chorus (men's voices) National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, leader GEOFFREY SILVER Introduced by Michael Berkeley
5

Omnibus at the Proms

Introduced by Jane Glover Tonight's concert, the second of six BBC1 visits to this year's Proms, features the internationally acclaimed London Sinfonietta in a programme of music intimately connected with Benjamin Britten. First comes The Wild Rumpus from Where the Wild Things Are, composed by one of Britten's proteges and a current director of the Aldburgh Festival, Oliver Knussen. It is followed by the television premiere of a sinfonietta commission, Suns Dance by Britten's former colleague and pupil, Colin Matthews. The composer sees it as 'an attempt to portray energy of a high order', and the score has already been incorporated by ASHLEY PAGE into a new piece for the Royal Ballet. The programme finishes with the suite arranged by Steuart Bedford from Britten's last opera, Death in Venice. In the interval the Britten scholar Donald Mitchell talks to Jane Glover about the composer's last years.
6

Omnibus at the Proms

Introduced by Jane Glover Dance - the theme of the 93rd season of Henry Wood Promenade concerts - is a subject close to the heart of tonight's conductor, Isaiah Jackson , who has worked with the Dance Theatre of Harlem and next month becomes the music director of the Royal Ballet. The main work in tonight's concert is Copland: Dance Symphony, described by its composer as 'one of the things-called-symphonies-that-aren't'. It was written for a never-staged vampire ballet called Grohg. Before conducting it, Isaiah Jackson talks to Jane Glover about his love of music for dance. First in the programme comes Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in which the soloist is the Irish-born pianist Philip Martin , for whom the Piece is fast becoming a speciality: 'You need a stretch like an octopus! Rachmaninov had huge hands!' with the BBC Concert Orchestra leader MARTIN LOVEDAY
7

Omnibus at the Proms

Introduced by Jane Glover Tonight one of America's foremost virtuoso violinists, Oscar Shumsky, plays a favourite work, often heard at the Proms - Brahms Violin Concerto in D Major. Shumsky was born in 1917 and played under Toscanini in the NBC Symphony Orchestra. But this reluctant virtuoso chose not to follow an international solo career, as he explains to Jane Glover. Continuing the dance theme of this year's Proms, the programme begins with excerpts from the ballet score by Glazunov: Raymonda composed when the Imperial Theatre at St Petersburg was in need of a successor to Tchaikovsky. Appropriately, tonight's conductor is the distinguished Russian Mariss Jansons. BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra led by James Clark.
8

Omnibus at the Proms

Introduced by Jane Glover who also talks to tonight's soloist, the soprano Felicity Lott , and to Bernard Haitink , who conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra leader RODNEY FRIEND Solo pianist John Alley This week's programme features two 20th-century masters of instrumental colour. Ravel: Sheherezade is a sumptuous evocation of the Orient. Originally planned as an opera, it crystallised into a ravishing song-cycle for soprano and orchestra. In Stravinsky: Petrushka the composer had in mind 'a distinct picture of a puppet, suddenly endowed with life.' His richly-scored ballet - set in the 1830s at a bustling Shrovetide fair in St Petersburg - reflects the dance theme of this year's Prom season, and is being performed in the original concert version Stravinsky made in 1911.
9

Omnibus at the Proms

Introduced by Jane Glover. In this year's Henry Wood Promenade concerts, the conductor Klaus Tennstedt makes a welcome return to the podium after a long absence through illness. With the London Philharmonic Orchestra led by David Nolan, of which Tennstedt is Principal Conductor, and the distinguished mezzo-soprano Brigitte Fassbaender, who opens the programme as soloist in the haunting song-cycle, Mahler: Kindertotenlieder. Renowned for his interpretation of Mahler and Brahms, Tennstedt talks to Jane Glover about their contrasting musical personalities, and conducts Brahms: Symphony No 4 in E minor, the composer's crowning symphonic achievement.
10

Live from the Proms: Part 1

The whole of tonight's concert from the Royal Albert Hall, London, in which composers from America, France, Russia, Denmark and Finland are represented in music full of vivid imagery. Concert suites from ballets by Shostakovich and Prokofiev underline the dance theme running through this year's Proms. City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, led by Felix Kok, conducted by Simon Rattle with the celebrated Swedish soprano Elisabeth Soderstrom in evocative folk songs from the Auvergne and a rarely-heard setting by Sibelius of a fantastic Finnish legend. Introduced by Michael Berkeley Gershwin Cuban Overture Canteloube Songs of the Auvergne (selection) Shostakovich The Age of Gold (suite)
11

Omnibus at the Proms

Beethoven: Choral Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Conducted by Claudio Abbado Karita Mattila (soprano) Alfreda Hodgson (mezzo-soprano) Jerry Hadley (tenor) Robert Holl (bass) BBC Symphony Chorus and the London Symphony Chorus Introduced by Richard Baker Beethoven's Ninth Symphony on the last Friday of the Promenade Concert season is a tradition established by Sir Henry Wood that continues to this day.
12

Last Night of the Proms

Live in stereo from the Royal Albert Hall , London, television and radio join to relay the colour and excitement of the world's most famous musical celebration, in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses The Duke and Duchess of York. The emphasis on dance that has marked Proms 87 continues in both halves of tonight's concert, through the dynamic rhythms of Bernstein's West Side Story and Malcolm Arnold 's homage to the English country dance. BBC Symphony Chorus director Gareth Morrell BBC Symphony Orchestra led by BELA DEKANY with Kun Woo Paik (piano) Felicity Palmer (mezzo) conducted by Mark Elder Introduced by Richard Baker Part 1 Between music made famous largely through the cinema, a flamboyant concerto in the grand romantic manner. Walton Spitfire Prelude and Fugue Liszt Piano Concerto No 1 in E flat Bernstein Symphonic Dances from West Side Story (Part 2 on BBC1 at 9. 00pm)
13

Last Night of the Proms

Part 2 A complete concert in itself: sparkling overture, operatic aria, and all the last-night favourites, reflecting the kind of popular programmes Henry Wood originally brought to the Proms. Smetana Overture: The Bartered Bride Tchaikovsky Joan of Arc's Farewell (The Maid of Orleans) Malcolm Arnold English Dances (Set 2) Elgar Pomp and Circumstance March No 1 Henry Wood Fantasia on British Sea-Songs Arne Rule , Britannia! Parry, orch Elgar, words by WILLIAM BLAKE Jerusalem
14

Omnibus

Towards Antara In 1980, at the age of 20, Englishman George Benjamin became the youngest living composer ever to have a work performed at the Proms. Since then he has established an international reputation and is recognised as one of the most exciting talents in music today. Tonight Omnibus presents the British premiere of Benjamin's latest work, Antara, commissioned by Pierre Boulez to mark the tenth anniversary of his renowned experimental music centre at the Pompidou in Paris. Antara takes as its inspiration the pan pipes of South America. This film documents the creation of the new piece and observes the composer confronting the ancient music of the pipes with all the exploratory possibilities of computer technology. Photography COLIN WALDECK Sound BRUCE GALLAWAY. GEOFF CUTTING Film editor DAVE KING Producer BARRIE GAVIN A simultaneous broadcast of the complete performance of Antara with BBC Radio 3 begins at 11. 10pm.