Here’s your daily 2024 BBC Proms preview, brought to you by BBC Music Magazine. We’re looking ahead to today’s Prom, Prom 70 (Thursday 12 September)… featuring a great Romantic violin concerto and an absolutely iconic ballet suite.
The 2024 BBC Proms come to their glorious conclusion this Saturday, 14 September, with the Last Night of the Proms. Until then, keep coming back to www.classical-music.com for previews of each Prom. And, to see all the 2024 Proms in one place, our comprehensive 2024 BBC Proms guide is your friend.
What’s on at the BBC Proms today?
Today’s Prom is Prom 70, and it features music from two Russian greats, and a 20th-century Polish composer whose reputation only continues to grow each year.
We begin with the 1943 Overture by the Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. One of the composer’s earliest forays into orchestral writing, the Overture already displays Bacewicz’s colourful musical style, mixing the neoclassicism of Stravinsky or Martinů with elements from the folk music of her native Poland. A vivid, exciting piece, it often features as an opener in classical music concerts.
Composed during World War II, a torrid time for Bacewicz’s native Poland, the Overture evokes a sense of defiance and resilience. Bacewicz was busy as both composer and performer during the war, and we can hear some of her determination to maintain her cultural identity, along with a mood of vitality and optimism.
Next on tonight’s programme is Tchaikovsky‘s magnificent Violin Concerto in D major. One of the best known and most frequently performed violin concertos in the repertoire, Tchaikovsky’s work shows off his his mastery of orchestral colour and his lyrical genius. It also makes some pretty strong demands on the soloist!
We had no hesitation in naming the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto one of the greatest violin concertos of all time. Past masters such as Isaac Stern, Itzhak Perlman and Jascha Heiftez, as well as more recent virtuosos such as Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, have made this wonderful concerto their own.
After the interval, it’s time for Prokofiev. We’ll hear highlights from the Russian composer’s hugely popular ballet Romeo and Juliet, one of the most famous ballets of the 20th century (we’ll go further: one of the best ballets of all time). Composed during 1935 and 1936, Romeo and Juliet draws (of course) on William Shakespeare’s iconic romantic tragedy of the same name – it’s one of many great classical music pieces inspired by Shakespeare.
Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet justly famous for its colourful rich orchestration, great drama, emotional depth, and vivid character portrayals. The score is full of emotional contrasts, with a spectrum of moods from tender and lyrical to starkly dissonant.
We hear lots of those bold, angular rhythms and striking harmonic progressions that characterise much of Prokofiev’s music (take the Sixth Symphony or Second Piano Concerto), giving Romeo and Juliet a modernist soundworld at times. Despite all this sonic adventurousness, though, the piece is bursting with Prokofiev’s prodigious melodic gifts, especially in its more tender and tragic moments.
Romeo and Juliet is a central work in both the ballet and orchestral repertoire. And you probably won’t be surprised that Prokofiev himself was a shoo-in to our list of classical music’s best ballet composers.
Who is performing at the BBC Proms today?
Today’s Prom 70 is performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and conductor Jaime Martín. They are joined by Serbian violinist Nemanja Radulović for the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto.
What time is tonight’s Prom?
Prom 70 gets going at 6.30pm. Tickets are priced from £11 to £54.