10 Sep 2018

BBC Proms 2018 - Week Six

From Music Alive, 6:00 am on 10 September 2018

 

The BBC Proms concerts this week in Music Alive include two massive symphonies with a lot in common. Both are for chorus and orchestra, and both touch on metaphysical themes.

Monday night sees the UK première of Danish composer Per Nørgård’s Third Symphony. With its text from the writings of poet Rainer Maria Rilke, this gripping work is a search of the cosmos.

NASA & ESA Hubble Space Telescope January 2016

The star cluster Trumpler 14, one of the largest gatherings in the Milky Way. Photo: AFP PHOTO / NASA & ESA, Jesús Maíz Apellániz (Instituto de Astrofisica de Andalucia)

 

What better way to complement a search for the meaning of life, than a set of songs that acknowledge an inevitable death?  Richard Strauss’s lustrous Four Last Songs share the same programme with a performance by German soprano Malin Byström.

Composer Gustav Mahler by Emil Orlik

Composer Gustav Mahler by Emil Orlik Photo: Public Domain

Wednesday night has Mahler’s best-loved Fourth Symphony performed by the ‘intoxicatingly energetic’ Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra.  

Mahler used this work to show a different side of himself to the world. He wrote to his confidante Nana Spiegler, “… you will glimpse an aspect of me that you do not yet know. All I fear is that this aspect will please you most, so that henceforth you will only look at me from one side.”

The Proms Schedule this week:

Monday 10 September 2018

7.30 Music Alive

BBC Proms 2018: Strauss, Wagner & Per Nørgård

Malin Byström (soprano), London Voices, The National Youth Chamber Choir, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Thomas Dausgaard

WAGNER: Parsifal, Prelude to Act 1;

STRAUSS: Four Last Songs;

NØRGÅRD: Symphony No 3

Recorded Royal Albert Hall, London (BBC)

Tuesday 11 September 2018

12.00 Upbeat

Including: 1.00 BBC Proms 2018:

Orchestre de la Suisse Romande & Jonathan Nott

Renaud Capuçon (violin), Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Jonathan Nott

DEBUSSY: Jeux;

RAVEL orch Maresz: Violin Sonata in G;

MASSENET: Meditation, from Thaïs;

STRAVINSKY: Petrushka

Recorded Royal Albert Hall, London (BBC)

7.30 Music Alive

BBC Proms 2018: Edward Gardner & Bergen Philharmonic

Alina Ibragimova (violin), Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra/Edward Gardner

WAGNER: Flying Dutchman Overture;

WALLIN: Violin Concerto;

SIBELIUS: Symphony No 2 in D Op 43

Recorded Royal Albert Hall, London (BBC)

Wednesday 12 September 2018

7.30 Music Alive

BBC Proms 2018: Iván Fischer & Budapest Festival Orchestra (I)

Anna Lucia Richter (soprano), Budapest Festival Orchestra/Ivan Fischer

ENESCU: Suite No 1, Prelude à l'unisson;

BARTOK: Music for strings, percussion & celesta;

MAHLER: Symphony No 4 in G

Recorded Royal Albert Hall, London (BBC)

Friday 14 September 2018

7.30 Music Alive

BBC Proms 2018: Mozart & Bruckner

Benjamin Grosvenor (piano), BBC Symphony Orchestra/Sakari Oramo

MOZART: Piano Concerto No 21 in C K467;

BRUCKNER: Symphony No 5 in Bb

Recorded Royal Albert Hall, London (BBC)

Saturday 15 September 2018

7.30 Music Alive

BBC Proms 2018: Marin Alsop & Baltimore Symphony Orchestra

Jean-Yves Thibaudet (piano), Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Marin Alsop

BERNSTEIN: Slava! (A Political Overture);

BERNSTEIN: Symphony No 2, The Age of Anxiety;

SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No 5 in D minor Op 47

Recorded Royal Albert Hall, London (BBC)