Today at the Proms - Prom 66

Continuing our daily coverage of what's on at The Proms 2018, Susan Omand has a quick look at the programme for Prom 66: Berlin Philharmonic & Kirill Petrenko ...



It's September! How did that happen? So I guess that means there's only a week to go until the big Last Night concert, time to get your circumstances pomped in preparation maybe.



However, back to tonight and an interesting collection of composers on offer. Yuja Wang is the soloist for Prokofiev’s explosive Third Piano Concerto and, if you've only heard of Prokofiev via Peter and the Wolf, this will be worth a listen to see that he really does know what he's talking about when it comes to piano works. Paul Dukas you'll also have heard of via a piece of music that has become more synonymous with a younger audience, as he wrote The Sorceror's Apprentice - that music from Fantasia where Mickey Mouse has a wizard's hat on. His La Peri Fanfare tonight though is from a ballet which shows much more maturity to his compositions.



The final piece is by a composer I'm not familiar with at all, Franz Schmidt. From what I can find out, he's an Austrian composer who trained under Bruckner and Mahler so it's sounding promising. Symphony no 4 appears to be his best known work and begins (and ends, having been transformed by the symphonic machinery in the middle) with a 23 bar melody performed on trumpet. However, Andrew Litton, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra Music Director Emeritus, explains the work better here.







Here's the full programme for this evening's Prom which you can listen to live on Radio 3 or on the iPlayer



Paul Dukas
La Péri – Fanfare(21 mins)

Sergei Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No 3 in C major(29 mins)

INTERVAL

Franz Schmidt
Symphony No 4 in C major(44 mins)


Image - Photo © Chris Christodoulou