BBC Proms 2019

Wednesday 14th August 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:00 to 21:30 (2 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 37: The Childhood of Christ.

Maxime Pascal conducts the Hallé, Britten Sinfonia Voices, Genesis Sixteen and a starry solo quartet, Julie Boulianne, Allan Clayton, Roderick Williams and Neal Davies. Presented by Andrew McGregor at the Royal Albert Hall. Berlioz: The Childhood of Christ Part 1: Herod's Dream. 7.40 Proms Plus: Inspired by Berlioz's trickery, Shahidha Bari and Nick Groom explore the long tradition of literary hoaxes, with readings from some of the most creative and audacious examples. 8.05 Berlioz: The Childhood of Christ Part 2: The Flight to Egypt Part 3: The Arrival at Saïs. Julie Boulianne (mezzo-soprano), Allan Clayton (tenor), Roderick Williams (baritone), Neal Davies (bass), Britten Sinfonia Voices, Genesis Sixteen, Hallé, conductor Maxime Pascal.

Friday 16th August 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:00 (2 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 40: Queen Victoria's 200th Anniversary.

Live from the Royal Albert Hall, Stephen Hough joins the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Ádám Fischer, then accompanies Alessandro Fisher to celebrate Queen Victoria's birth in 1819. The programme features music by her favourite composer, Mendelssohn. Presented by Hannah French. Alessandro Fisher (tenor), Stephen Hough (piano), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conductor Ádám Fischer. Sullivan: Victoria and Merrie England - ballet suite No 1. Mendelssohn: Piano Concerto No 1 in G minor, Op 25. 8.15 Interval - Proms Plus. With Queen Victoria's piano centre-stage in tonight's concert, historians Lee Jackson and Kathryn Hughes discuss what kept Her Majesty's subjects amused indoors and outdoors. 8.35 Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha: Gruss aus der Ferne; Standchen; Gruss an den Bruder; Aus Wilhelm Meister; Lebewohl. Mendelssohn: Symphony No 3 in A minor, Op 56 `Scottish".

Sunday 18th August 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:00 (2 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 42: Clara Schumann Piano Concerto.

The Ulster Orchestra with Rafael Payare and Mariam Batsashvili in works by Beethoven, Clara Schumann, Sofia Gubaidulina and Shostakovich. Live from the Royal Albert Hall. Presented by Hannah French. Beethoven: Symphony No 1 in C major. Clara Schumann: Piano Concerto. c.8.20 Interval: Ian Skelly talks to pianist Lucy Parham and musicologist Natasha Loges about the life and work of Clara Schumann. Sofia Gubaidulina: Fairytale Poem. Shostakovich: Symphony No 1 in F minor. Mariam Batsashvili (piano), Ulster Orchestra, Rafael Payare (conductor). Belfast's Ulster Orchestra and its dynamic music director Rafael Payare present the Proms premiere of Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto, performed here by BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Mariam Batsashvili. Begun when the then Clara Wieck was just 13 years old, it's a work whose mellow mood and lyrical melodies conceal no little technical intricacy and formal innovation. Sunny good humour also runs through both Beethoven's Symphony No 1, famously described as a musical comedy of manners, and Shostakovich's First Symphony, lively with satirical wit and mischief.

Monday 19th August 2019 (starting this afternoon)
Time: 13:02 to 14:00 (58 minutes long)

Proms at Cadogan Hall 5: Louise Alder.

Petroc Trelawny presents a live recital from Cadogan Hall by soprano Louise Alder and pianist Gary Matthewman, featuring songs by Schubert, Rossini, Chopin, Mendelssohn and Fanny Hensel. Reaching the 19th century in the Monday lunchtime survey of music spanning over 800 years, soprano Alder and pianist Matthewman present songs from across Europe, including Lieder by Schubert, and by both Mendelssohn and his sister Fanny Hensel, whose final song Bergeslust - completed just a day before her death at the age of only 41 - tempers joy with a poignant ending. The many facets of love are exposed in Felix Mendelssohn's Der Mond and Neue Liebe, as well as in Chopin's Sliczny chlopiec (Handsome Lad) and songs by Liszt and Rossini. Schubert: Gretchen am Spinnrade; Nacht und Träume; Die Forelle. Mendelssohn: Auf Flügeln des Gesanges; Der Mond; Neue Liebe. Fanny Hensel: Bergeslust; Warum sind denn die Rosen so blass; Nach Süden. Liszt: Freudvoll und leidvoll; O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst; S'il est un charmant gazon; Oh! quand je dors; Comment, disaient-ils. Chopin: Zyczenie; Sliczny chlopiec. Rossini: Canzonetta spagnuola. Louise Alder (soprano), Gary Matthewman (piano).

Tuesday 20th August 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:00 (2 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 44: Belshazzar's Feast.

The London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus with Sir Simon Rattle and Gerald Finley in Koechlin's Les bandar-log, Varese's Amériques and Walton's Belshazzar's Feast. Live from the Royal Albert Hall. Presented by Petroc Trelawny. Koechlin: Les bandar-log. Varese: Amériques (original version, 1921). c.8.15pm Interval: Proms Plus. Since its publication in 1894, Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book has remained loved by children, but its attitudes have been questioned by some parents and critics, who see it as a relic of colonial English literature. Koechlin's Les Bandar-Log is part of his nearly life long effort to set The Jungle Book to music. Costa Book Prize winning novelist Frances Hardinge and Sue Walsh from Reading University explore the book's popularity and controversies with New Generation Thinker Anindya Raychaudhuri. c.8.35pm: Walton: Belshazzar's Feast. Gerald Finley (baritone), Orfeo Catala, Orfeo Catala Youth Choir, London Symphony Chorus, London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle (conductor). Sir Simon Rattle conducts a concert of sonic spectacle, bringing one of the great English oratorios together with an American orchestral classic. Walton's choral masterpiece Belshazzar's Feast gets the Proms treatment with a 300-strong choir and Canadian baritone Gerald Finley as soloist. More than 10 percussionists are needed to bring Varese's Amériques - a celebration of the modern city in sound - to life, while Charles Koechlin's Jungle Book inspired Les bandar-log transports listeners to the primeval forest, where all the noise comes from the monkeys.

Thursday 22nd August 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:00 (2 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 46: City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla perform music by Weinberg, Howell and Knussen, and are joined by cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason in Elgar's cello concerto. Live from the Royal Albert Hall, presented by Andrew McGregor. Dorothy Howell: Lamia. Henry Wood Novelties: world premiere, 1919. Elgar: Cello Concerto in E minor. 8.15 Interval: An exploration of the life and work of Mieczyslaw Weinberg with musicologist and broadcaster Erik Levi. 8.35 Knussen: The Way to Castle Yonder. Weinberg: Symphony No 3 (London premiere). Sheku Kanneh-Mason (cello), City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla (conductor). The CBSO and Music Director Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla celebrate the centenary of Mieczyslaw Weinberg, the man Shostakovich hailed as 'one of the most outstanding composers' of his day - with a rare performance of his Symphony No 3, a work that combines folk melodies and dances with confessional urgency. That intensity is shared by Elgar's passionate Cello Concerto, performed here by 2016 BBC Young Musician winner Sheku Kanneh-Mason. The concert opens with Dorothy Howell's radiant tone-poem Lamia (first performed, like Elgar's concerto, 100 years ago) and also includes The Way to Castle Yonder, a suite from the much-missed Oliver Knussen's opera Higglety Pigglety Pop!

Friday 23rd August 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:15 (2 hours and 45 minutes long)

Prom 47: Bach Organ Music & Bruckner Eighth Symphony.

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra returns live to the Proms at the Albert Hall for the first time under new music director Andris Nelsons. At the heart of their programme is Bruckner's Symphony No 8 - a work as vast in scope as size, a mighty orchestral monologue whose monumental finale the composer considered `the most significant movement of my life". Before the broad unfolding of Bruckner, Michael Schönheit presents the meticulous detail of Bach in a series of solo organ works including the lovely chorale Wachet auf. Presented by Ian Skelly. Michael Schönheit (organ), Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, conductor Andris Nelsons. Bach: Fantasia in G minor, BWV542; Cantata No 147 - Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV147. Bach trans Schmidt-Mannheim: Chorale - Jesus bleibet meine Freude. Bach: Prelude in E flat, BWV552; Chorale Prelude - Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645; Fugue in E flat, BWV552. 8.15 Interval - Proms Plus: Petroc Trelawny talks to Stephen Johnson and Professor Julian Horton about the relationship between music and architecture. 8.35 Bruckner: Symphony No 8 in C minor (1890 version).

Monday 2nd September 2019 (starting this afternoon)
Time: 13:02 to 14:00 (58 minutes long)

Proms at Cadogan Hall 7: Silesian String Quartet.

Petroc Trelawny presents a live recital from London's Cadogan Hall, with the Silesian String Quartet playing Weinberg's 7th String Quartet and pianist Wojciech Switala joining for Bacewicz's late masterpiece Piano Quintet No 1. Celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Mieczyslaw Weinberg - the composer Shostakovich famously hailed as his musical successor - continue with an all-Polish programme from the first half of the 20th century that sets Weinberg's own music alongside that of his great contemporary Grazyna Bacewicz. Folk themes take on a new sophistication, cleverly manipulated and moulded in Bacewicz's Piano Quintet No. 1. Weinberg: String Quartet No 7; Bacewicz: Piano Quintet No 1. Silesian String Quartet, Wojciech Switala (piano).

Monday 2nd September 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:00 to 22:30 (3 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 59: Benvenuto Cellini.

Tom Service presents live from the Royal Royal Albert Hall as John Eliot Gardiner conducts Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, the Monteverdi Choir and tenor Michael Spyres in Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini. Gardiner brings his five-year series of Berlioz performances to a triumphant close, and this summer's 150th anniversary celebrations to a spectacular climax, with the composer's rarely performed opera Benvenuto Cellini, based on the life and loves of the Renaissance sculptor - culminating in the forging of a vast masterwork. With its sprawling storytelling and vastly demanding score, this is a piece built for the scope of the Royal Albert Hall. American tenor Michael Spyres sings the title role. Berlioz: Benvenuto Cellini. Michael Spyres (Tenor: Benvenuto Cellini), Sophia Burgos (Soprano: Teresa), Matthew Rose (Bass: Balducci), Tareq Nazmi (Bass: Pope Clement VII), Krystian Adam (Tenor: Francesco), Lionel Lhote (Baritone: Fieramosca), Adèle Charvet (Mezzo: Ascanio), Ashley Riches (Baritone: Bernardino), Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner (conductor). Interval at approx 8.25: Historian and broadcaster Sarah Lenton talks about Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini.

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:15 (2 hours and 45 minutes long)

Prom 60: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (I).

The Vienna Philharmonic with conductor Bernard Haitink and pianist Emanuel Ax in Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto and Bruckner's 7th Symphony. Live from the Royal Albert Hall. Presented by Martin Handley. Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 4 in G major. 8.05pm Interval. Martin Handley talks to tonight's conductor Bernard Haitink about his life and career. Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E major. Emanuel Ax (piano), Vienna Philharmonic, Bernard Haitink (conductor). In a year that marks both his 90th birthday and the 65th anniversary of his conducting debut, Bernard Haitink conducts the first of the Vienna Philharmonic's two concerts this season.

Wednesday 4th September 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:00 to 21:30 (2 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 61: Vienna Philharmonic and Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

The Vienna Philharmonic and conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada in Dvorak's New World Symphony, and Leonidas Kavakos plays Korngold's Violin Concerto. Live from the Royal Albert Hall. Presented by Martin Handley. Dvorak: The Noonday Witch. Korngold: Violin Concerto. 7.45 Interval: Musicologists Ben Winters and Jessica Duchen discuss Korngold and America with Georgia Mann. Dvorak: Symphony No 9 in E minor, 'From the New World'. Leonidas Kavakos (violin), Vienna Philharmonic, conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

Thursday 5th September 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:00 (2 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 63: Yuja Wang Plays Rachmaninov.

The Staatskapelle Dresden with Myung-Whun Chung and Yuja Wang perform works by Rachmaninov and Brahms, live from the Royal Albert Hall. Presented by Ian Skelly. Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor. 8.15 Interval. Proms Plus: Each year Proms Plus and the Free Thinking programme invite a leading author to talk about their career. Mark Haddon - author of the literary and theatrical super-hit The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - discusses the ideas in his latest novel, The Porpoise. The book re-imagines the legend of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, the subject of an epic work by the English poet Gower, and a play by Shakespeare, keeping its central image of a ship at sea, but re-imagining it in a modern age of aviation. He is interviewed by Anne McElvoy. The whole interview will be broadcast as a Free Thinking episode later in September. 8.40 Brahms: Symphony No 2 in D. Yuja Wang (piano). Staatskapelle Dresden, Myung-Whun Chung (conductor). Explosively virtuosic and a thrilling live performer, Yuja Wang is the soloist in Rachmaninov's emotionally expansive and technically demanding Third Piano Concerto - one of the most challenging in the repertoire. She joins conductor Myung-Whun Chung and the Staatskapelle Dresden - the second of this week's visiting European orchestras - for a concert that also includes Brahms's genial Symphony No 2, whose freshness and spontaneity have drawn comparisons with Beethoven's 'Pastoral' Symphony.

Saturday 7th September 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:30 (3 hours long)

Prom 65: Mozart, Beethoven & R Strauss.

Constantinos Carydis conducts the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and soprano Danae Kontora in Mozart and Strauss, plus Beethoven Symphony No 7. Presented by Ian Skelly, live at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Mozart: The Abduction from the Seraglio - overture. Aria: Popoli di Tessaglia! - lo non chiedo, eterni dei. Cassation No 1 in G - Andante. Aria: No, no, che non sei capace. Symphony No 35 in D, 'Haffner'. c.8.25 Interval: Georgia Mann introduces an exploration of the connections between the music of Strauss and Mozart, with musicologist Barbara Eichner. Richard Strauss: Capriccio - sextet; Ariadne auf Naxos - 'Grossmächtige Prinzessin!'. Beethoven: Symphony No 7 in A. Danae Kontora (soprano). Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Constantinos Carydis (conductor). Greek coloratura soprano Danae Kontora makes her Proms debut with a sequence of Mozart and Strauss arias, while Mozart's 'Haffner' Symphony is filled with operatic ornamentation and dramatic effects. The vitality of Beethoven's Symphony No 7 led to its being famously described by Wagner as 'the apotheosis of the dance'.

Sunday 8th September 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 21:45 (2 hours and 15 minutes long)

Prom 67: Sakari Oramo conducts Sibelius.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra in the final version of Sibelius's 5th Symphony. Plus, works by Mussorgsky and Weir, and Louis Andriessen's The Only One (UK premiere). Live from the Royal Albert Hall. Presented by Penny Gore. Modest Mussorgsky (orch. Rimsky-Korsakov): A Night on the Bare Mountain. Louis Andriessen: The Only One (UK premiere). BBC co-commission with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and NTR ZaterdagMatinee. 8.00 Interval: Proms Plus. Witchcraft, witch-trials and the image of the witch are explored by historian Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and activist Laura Bates. Hosted by New Generation Thinker Fern Riddell. Laura Bates is founder of Everyday Sexism and author of The Burning, a novel about a young woman's trial by social media. Suzannah Lipscomb has presented a Channel 5 TV programme on witchcraft and written a Ladybird Expert Book on the topic. 8.20 Judith Weir: Forest. Jean Sibelius: Symphony No 5 in E flat major (final version, 1919). Nora Fischer (singer), BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo (conductor). A Prom celebrating Nature in all her moods. A flight of 16 swans was the catalyst for Sibelius's stirring Fifth Symphony, with its ambiguous, mysterious ending. We hear the composer's final 1919 version - after the thrilling UK premiere of the original 1915 version performed at the BBC Proms earlier this season by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. While for Judith Weir, it was nature's process - forests sprouting outwards from a single seed, endlessly growing and multiplying - that offered inspiration. Nature turns menacing in Mussorgsky's vivid tone-poem A Night on the Bare Mountain. Boundary-breaking singer Nora Fischer is the soloist in the UK premiere of The Only One by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen, who turned 80 this year, setting texts by the Flemish poet Delphine Lecompte.

Monday 9th September 2019 (starting this afternoon)
Time: 13:02 to 14:00 (58 minutes long)

Proms at Cadogan Hall 8: Tribute to Oliver Knussen.

Petroc Trelawny presents a live recital from London's Cadogan Hall in which the newly formed Knussen Chamber Orchestra conductor Ryan Wigglesworth pay tribute to Oliver Knussen. The final concert in this year's Proms at Cadogan Hall series, tracing over 800 years of music history, brings listeners from the late 20th century right up to the present day. A giant of British contemporary music, composer Oliver Knussen is celebrated a year on from his death in a special performance by the Knussen Chamber Orchestra. Made up of orchestral principals and rising young musicians from across the UK, the ensemble is conducted by Knussen's protege Ryan Wigglesworth. Knussen's own Purcell-inspired ... upon one note, the lyrical Songs without Voices and Study for Metamorphosis for solo bassoon are framed by works from Harrison Birtwistle, Alastair Putt and a newly commissioned work by Freya Waley-Cohen. Knussen: ...upon one note - Fantasia after Purcell. Harrison Birtwistle: Fantasia upon all the notes.Freya Waley-Cohen: New work - BBC commission: world premiere. Knussen: Study for Metamorphosis: Hans Abrahamsen: Herbstlied. Alastair Putt: Halazuni. Knussen: Songs without Voices. Knussen Chamber Orchestra, Ryan Wigglesworth (conductor).

Tuesday 10th September 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:00 to 21:30 (2 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 69: Smetana, Shostakovich & Tchaikovsky.

Semyon Bychkov conducts the Czech Philharmonic in excerpts from Tchaikovsky and Smetana operas and Shostakovich's wartime 8th Symphony. Presented live at the Royal Albert Hall by Martin Handley. Smetana: The Bartered Bride - overture; Three Dances. Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin - Letter Scene. 8.10 Interval: Proms Plus. A verbal correspondence about the function of letters in literature and life. The speakers are best-selling crime novelist Ruth Ware and Shaun Usher, editor of the popular website Letters Of Note. Hosted by New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau. Shostakovich: Symphony No 8 in C minor. Elena Stikhina (soprano), Czech Philharmonic, Semyon Bychkov (conductor). The dancing rhythms and swirling colours of Smetana's opera The Bartered Bride launch a concert of big musical gestures and even bigger emotions. First love blazes hot in the Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, as Tatyana (sung here by soprano Elena Stikhina) pours out her heart in music as romantic as anything the composer ever wrote. War, not love, drives the pulsing heartbeat of Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony - the most personal and direct of the composer's many attempts to express the terrible tragedy of war.

Wednesday 11th September 2019 (starting this evening)
Time: 19:30 to 22:00 (2 hours and 30 minutes long)

Prom 71: Bach Night.

The Dunedin Consort are directed by John Butt in Bach's Orchestral Suites, live from the Royal Albert Hall. Presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch. Bach: Orchestral Suite No 4 in D major, BWV 1069; Orchestral Suite No 1 in C major, BWV 1066. 8.25 Interval - Sara Mohr-Pietsch explores the pivotal role that Henry Wood played in the revival of J.S. Bach's music at the turn of the 20th century, with guest musicologist Hannah French. Bach: Orchestral Suite No 2 in B minor, BWV 1067; Orchestral Suite No 3 in D major, BWV 1068. The Dunedin Consort, John Butt (director).