{"id":46854,"date":"2024-08-22T02:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-22T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/2d0df50b-5d7f-407b-9e20-35aafad3dc9f"},"modified":"2024-08-22T03:07:14","modified_gmt":"2024-08-22T01:07:14","slug":"today-at-the-bbc-proms-mussorgskys-iconic-pictures-and-mozarts-farewell-to-the-piano","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/today-at-the-bbc-proms-mussorgskys-iconic-pictures-and-mozarts-farewell-to-the-piano\/","title":{"rendered":"Today at the BBC Proms: Mussorgsky’s iconic Pictures, and Mozart’s farewell to the piano"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Thursday, 22 August 2024 at 00:01 AM<\/p>

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Today’s concert at the BBC Proms<\/a><\/strong> features a delicious mix of Ravel, Mozart, Mussorgsky and the unjustly neglected French female composer Augusta Holm\u00e8s.<\/p>

Our website www.classical-music.com<\/a><\/strong> is your one-stop shop for all BBC Proms content. We’ve got guides to each day’s Prom, including repertoire, performers and more. Meanwhile, head to our 2024 BBC Proms guide<\/a><\/strong> for an overview of all the Proms this year. These include the 73 Proms taking place at the Royal Albert Hall in London, plus other Proms concerts around the UK – chamber music<\/a><\/strong> in Aberdeen, Newport and Belfast, and weekend festivals in Bristol, Nottingham and Gateshead.<\/p>

What’s on at the BBC Proms today?<\/h2>
It’s Prom 43 at the 2024 BBC Proms today. And we begin with the suite from Maurice Ravel<\/a><\/strong>‘s Ma m\u00e8re l’Oye<\/em> (Mother Goose<\/em>). Ravel composed this work in 1910, as a piano duet for Mimi and Jean Godebski, aged six and seven. Its five movements evoke scenes from fairytales including Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb and Beauty and the Beast. <\/p>
Six pieces of classical music inspired by fairytales<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul>
Ravel then gave the piece a full orchestration the following year, in 1911. He also expanded it into a ballet, with 11 movements. However, it’s the five-movement orchestration you’ll hear tonight.<\/p>
<\/div><\/figure><p>Next on tonight’s programme is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/mozart\">Mozart<\/a><\/strong>‘s final Piano Concerto, Number 27 in B flat major. First performed early in 1791, the year of its composer’s death, No. 27 has an eloquent simplicity about it in places. It’s certainly a rather more direct and limpid <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-concerto\">concerto<\/a><\/strong> than, say, its flashier predecessor, No. 26 ‘Coronation’. <\/p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/mozart-piano-concertos-best-recordings\">Mozart Piano Concertos: the best recordings<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul><p>Following that is a work you might not know. It’s by the female French composer <strong>Augusta<\/strong> <strong>Holm\u00e8s<\/strong> (1847-1903). Holm\u00e8s’s story is somewhat similar to that of other 19th-century female composers such as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/fanny-mendelssohn\"><strong>Fanny Mendelssohn<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/clara-schumann\"><strong>Clara Schumann<\/strong><\/a>, in that the prevailing climate – in which women were discouraged from a career in music – obliged her to publish some early works under a male pseudonym – Hermann Zenta, in this case. <\/p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/best-french-composers-ever\">The greatest French composers of all time<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0<\/li><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/5-best-works-clara-schumann\">Clara Schumann: five of the best works by this pioneering Romantic<\/a><\/strong> <\/li><\/ul><p>Tonight you will hear<em> <\/em>\u2018La nuit et l\u2019amour\u2019, an orchestral interlude from Holm\u00e8s’s choral work <em><em>Ludus pro patria<\/em><\/em>.<\/p><figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Augusta Holm\u00e8s - La Nuit et l'amour (1888)\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JQQnmqc4Fus?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/><\/div><\/figure><p>This evening’s major work is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/modest-musorgsky\">Mussorgsky<\/a><\/strong>‘s <em>Pictures at an Exhibition<\/em>. Originally composed as a piano suite, this <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/recordings\/pictures-at-an-exhibition-musorgsky-guide-best-recordings\">magnificent work<\/a><\/strong> has been given several orchestral transcriptions. The most commonly heard orchestration is by Ravel. Tonight, however, you will hear the orchestration made in 1915 (five years before Ravel’s effort) by the Proms founder <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/who-was-sir-henry-wood\">Sir Henry Wood<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p><ul><li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/musorgsky-style-guide\">Mussorgsky: a style guide<\/a><\/strong><\/li><\/ul><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-is-pictures-at-an-exhibition-about\">What is <em>Pictures at an Exhibition<\/em> about?<\/h3><p>Pictures at an Exhibition is something quite unique in the classical music repertoire. It’s a depiction, in music, of a tour of a painting exhibition. The exhibition was by the Russian artist (and friend of Mussorgsky’s)\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Viktor_Hartmann\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Viktor Hartmann<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0and was staged at the\u00a0Imperial Academy of Arts\u00a0in\u00a0Saint Petersburg, not long after Hartmann’s sudden death. <\/p><p>Each movement of <em>Pictures<\/em> is based on a painting from the exhibition. So what we have are ten musical \u2018pictures\u2019, evoked by Hartmann\u2019s actual pictures, interspersed with briefer \u2018promenade\u2019 sections as we make our way one painting to the next. <\/p><figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DXy50exHjes?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/><\/div><\/figure><p>We hear evocations of a catacomb of skulls; of an Italian medieval castle with a troubadour standing before it; of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/topic\/Baba-Yaga\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Baba Yaga<\/strong><\/a>, the fascinating and slightly eerie figure that dominates much Slavic folklore; of children playing in the Tuileries gardens in Paris; and much more. It’s a hugely arresting and atmospheric listening experience.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-who-is-performing-at-the-bbc-proms-today\">Who is performing at the BBC Proms today?<\/h2><p>Tonight’s performers are the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and their chief conductor Kazuki Yamada. They are joined, for the Mozart piano concerto, by the British pianist <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/who-is-paul-lewis\">Paul Lewis<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p><h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-time-is-tonight-s-prom\">What time is tonight’s Prom?<\/h2><p>Prom 43 gets underway at 7.30pm. Tickets are priced between \u00a311 and \u00a354.<br\/><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Thursday, 22 August 2024 at 00:01 AM Today’s concert at the BBC Proms features a delicious mix of Ravel, Mozart, Mussorgsky and the unjustly neglected French female composer Augusta Holm\u00e8s. Our website www.classical-music.com is your one-stop shop for all BBC Proms content. 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