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Published: Wednesday, 04 September 2024 at 09:10 AM


Welcome to your daily BBC Proms preview, brought to you by BBC Music Magazine! Read on for all you need to know about Prom 59, taking place at the Royal Albert Hall at 6.30pm (BST) on Wednesday 4 September. It’s an all French lineup, including a much-loved Requiem and one of the lushest, most atmospheric orchestral works of the 20th century.

Keep coming back to www.classical-music.com throughout the 2024 BBC Proms season (which culminates with the Last Night of the Proms, on Saturday 14 September). Each day you’ll find an insightful guide to that evening’s Prom, including repertoire, performers and more. And for a bird’s-eye view of all the Proms taking place this year, simply head to our fully loaded 2024 BBC Proms guide.

What’s on at the BBC Proms today?

Prom 59 is an all-French affair. We begin with two works by the early 20th-century French composer Lili Boulanger. Lili was the sister of Nadia Boulanger, one of the most influential classical music teachers of any era.

Sadly, Lili only lived to the age of 24, dying tragically young after suffering with bronchial pneumonia and, latterly, intestinal tuberculosis. Tonight we’ll hear Lili’s Pie Jesu, scored for high voice, string quartet, harp and organ and dicatetd to her sister Nadia in her illness, We’ll also hear the Vieille prière bouddhique (‘Old Buddhist Prayer’). Setting, you’ve guessed it, an old Buddhist prayer to music, it’s scored for tenor, chorus (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) and orchestra.

Fauré’s serene, consoling Requiem

The major work before the interval tonight is Gabriel Fauré‘s beautiful, soothing Requiem. Composed between 1887 and 1890, the Requiem in D minor is one of the French composer’s best-known works. Fauré worked for decades as a church organist, accompanying the burial services of countless Parisians. This will doubtless have left the composer with a philosophical attitude to death, and this is reflected in his Requiem, which is a far more serene and tranquil example of the form than the more blood-and-thunder Requiems composed by Mozart and Verdi.