Earlier Friday evening the First Night of the 121st annual BBC Proms took place in London. This is the world's greatest classical music festival and for eight weeks many of the world's greatest orchestras and performers visit London to take part in daily concerts. The schedule is listed on the Proms site and all are available live on the BBC Radio 3 iPlayer site and are also available on demand for 30 days on the iPlayer site .

As I have in past years I'll occasionally bring to your attention a concert that I thought was particularly enjoyable.

You should just start a continuous and updated annual thread on proms.

Incidentally, if you google "proms", the first link surprisingly is this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/proms

and not this

Earlier this evening in London on the second part of Prom 13 the BBC Symphony Orchestra gave a fine performance of Holst's The Planets. This music is always a great favorite both for the intensity or beauty of the various sections and for use as a demonstration disc. Available for 30 days here .

On the second part of Prom 15 earlier this evening the BBC National Orchestra of Wales performed the gorgeous Rachmaninoff 2nd Symphony. Available here on the Radio 3 iPlayer.

I originally missed hearing Prom 4, but belatedly listened and was rewarded with an excellent performance of Beethoven's monumental choral Symphony No.9 by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Still available for 14 days here .

Thanks for the heads up John, it was indeed an excellent performance, thoroughly enjoyed it! The other composition I listened to "The Creatures of Prometheus" was also quite good.
Jeff

Earlier this evening on Prom 34 the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra performed a concert that was enjoyable from beginning to end. The first part opened with Britten's Four Sea Interludes and continued with a performance of the beautiful Korngold Violin with Nicola Benedetti as the soloist. She also performed as a very pretty encore music from Korngold's Die Tote Stadt(The Dead City).

Following intermission the concert concluded here with Prokofiev's great 5th Symphony.

This year the Proms recognizes the 150th Anniversary of Sibelius by featuring much of his orchestral music, including all seven of his symphonies.

Prom 43 had excellent performances of the 5th, 6th and 7th symphonies by the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The 5th was played in the first half. After intermission both the 6th and the 7th were performed here .

Prom 51 finds the Boston Symphony Orchestra visiting London. On the second half of the concert Shostakovich's massive 10th Symphony is given a fine performance. His brief "Galop" is played as an encore.

Prom 69 featured a performance of Orff's huge, and hugely popular, Cantata "Carmina Burana" on the second half. The BBC Concert Orchestra and three choruses created the massive forces necessary to perform the work.

Thanks for posting these. The Carmina Burana performance might finally be enough to make me hook up a decent DAC to my PC. I've had a TubeDAC 11 sitting in a box for a couple of months without enough free time to do anything with it, hopefully this will be the nudge I needed

For Prom 70 the St. Petersburg Philharmonic came from Russia to London to present an all-Russian concert with three colorful and popular compositions. The first half began with Tchaikovsky's Francesca da Rimini, musically depicting Francesca and her lover in the swirling fire storms of hell. There followed the familiar melodies of the Rachmaninoff 2nd Piano Concerto. Following intermission the exotic tales of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade unfolded, with two encores then being offered to end the concert.