Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo 2009 BBC Proms

Just finished listening to a replay of the Prom 31 concert which took place earlier Saturday evening in London. The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, conducted by Vassily Petrenko, appeared and on the first part of the program Stephen Hough was featured in an excellent performance of Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto. Following intermission the Lutoslawski Concerto for Orchestra(only moderately interesting in my view)was played, and the the very colorful Roman Festivals by Respighi concluded the concert with a bang. This finished the traversal of all three Roman Poems by Respighi at the Proms, and the Pines of Rome in Prom 29 and Fountains of Rome in Prom 30 are also worth a listen.

BBC Radio 3's Thursday afternoon program included a replay of last week's Prom 34 with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Fast forwarding about 50 minutes into the program gets to the meat of the concert with a beautiful performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto by Julian Rachlin. Concluding the concert were excerpts from Khachaturian's Spartacus and Gayaneh. As usual, available for 7 days.

Earlier Tuesday evening Prom 62 took place in London, featuring the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, voted by Gramophone Magazine recently as being the finest in the world. The second part of the concert, after a few minutes of the intermission feature, had a performance of the Shostakovich 10th Symphony, released shortly after Stalin's death and said to be somewhat of a celebration(Stalin had given him a really hard time), with an ominous opening movement, tumultuous second and triumphant conclusion.

Two encores were performed: the Sibelius Valse Triste and a vigorous excerpt from Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtzensk, which Stalin had banned.

Also worth hearing is the performance of the Shostakovich 11th Symphony, commemorating the 1905 uprising and massacre which took place in St. Petersburg, which was featured on Prom 46 and repeated on yesterday's BBC Afternoon Program . Fast forwarding about an hour into the program gets to the symphony, which has a segment in the second movement that's about the most violent in all of symphonic music.