Friday night in London the 116th year of the BBC Proms, the world's greatest classical music festival, begins its eight weeks of concerts. The weekly schedule of concerts is found here . Each concert is available live on BBC Radio 3 and most are available on demand for the following seven days on the BBC Radio 3 iPlayer site .

As I've done in past years, I'll probably occasionally post a comment about a program that I enjoyed and think that you might also enjoy.

Thursday evening BBC Prom Concert 8 took place, with Thierry Fischer conducting the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in an interesting program. Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem opened and was followed by Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto. After the intermission feature on Chekhov the epic wartime Shostakovich 7th Symphony("Leningrad")received an excellent performance, with a notable nearly inaudible level adopted in the first movement for the first appearance of the recurring 5-note theme depicting the approaching German army.

Very worthwhile listen, available on demand for six more days on the BBC iPlayer site linked previously.

Prom Concert 34 had an excellent program of late-romantic and post-romantic music. It opened with the practically unknown, but beautiful, music of Franz Schreker, who died in poverty after being suppressed by the nazis. Following was an excellent performance of the gorgeous Korngold Violin Concerto. After the intermission, the concert concluded with Mahler's massive Symphony No. 7.

Available on demand for five more days on the BBC Radio 3 iPlayer site here .

Thanks for the info John!

Interesting program! Prom 46, which I almost passed on the first time around because of unfamiliarity with some of the music, turned out to be a winner and BBC Radio 3 rebroadcast it earlier this afternoon on their Afternoon on 3 program, which is available on demand for seven more days.

Opening piece was a five minute item named The Foundry, composed by Mosolov(who I'd never heard of)to picture increasing industrialization. Noisy and fun to listen to. In contrast, there followed the sparse textures and many moments of complete silence(real dynamic range there!)of the Estonian composer Arvo Part, who was present in the hall. Serene music with moments of beauty.

After intermission, more familiar music was heard, beginning with the Ravel Concerto for the Left Hand, composed for a pianist who'd lost his right arm in World War I. Concluding the concert was the massive Poem of Ecstasy which Scriabin composed on various erotic themes.

Available at the BBC Radio 3 site here .

Prom 58 had the superb Czech Philharmonic Orchestra visiting London to be conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner in a concert of primarily Czech music. The first part opened with the Dvorak Carnival Overture and concluded with Martinu's Fantasies Symphoniques.

In the second part, for a change of pace, the musical scene shifted to Norway for a fine performance of the Grieg Piano Concerto by Lars Vogt, who added a beautiful Chopin Nocturne for an encore.

In the final part, Janacek's Blanik opened and the concert then concluded with an excellent performance of my favorite Dvorak symphony, the 8th.

Available on demand at the BBC Radio 3 iPlayer site here for four more days.

The 2010 Proms is coming to a close, and Saturday evening will have the famous "Last Night of the Proms" concert. In the meantime, Prom 71 brought the Orchestre National de France to London for a program of French music and music with a French connection. The very gentle Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faune by Debussy opened and was followed by his slightly more vigorous La Mer. After the intermission, for a change of pace, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, which was violent enough to cause the gentle French music lovers attending the first performance in Paris in 1913 to riot, was performed.

Available on demand for six more days at the BBC iPlayer site here .

Hi John,

I spent a few minutes looking through the web sight to see if the Proms are down loadable via podcasts so I would have a diversion for some upcoming flights. They seem to have a lot of podcasts but no Proms. I'm just wondering if you might be aware of them and prove me wrong.

If you’re not averse to torrents there are many available via torrent download. Just search for “BBC Proms torrents” and the top link should have a few dozen healthy torrents. There are also a lot of software options to capture the audio stream real time which takes longer.

Thanks Dean. I'm not adverse. Anything that helps chew up bandwidth helps keep me employed...

Andrew, as far as podcasts on the Radio 3 site, no, there aren't any with live concerts, and even those using commercial recordings are UK only. Probably this is due to contractual limitations that the BBC is working with.