Today at the Proms - Prom 48

Continuing our daily coverage of what's on at The Proms 2019, Susan Omand has a quick look at the programme for Prom 48: Rachmaninov, Prokofiev & Silvestri ...



It's a real wander round the orchestra tonight. We start in the strings section with the Austrian /Italian /Romanian composer Silvestri's Three Pieces for Strings, based on themes inspired by, but not directly quoting from, the folk music in Bihor county Romania.



Next tonight is a virtuoso piano performance by 2015 Chopin International Piano Competition winner Seong-Jin Cho with Prokofiev's Piano Concerto no 2 which is, by turns, jarring, emotional, intense and dramatic with cadenzas so complex that it has been said at times that there were only a dozen pianists in the world who could perform it. Even Prokofiev himself stumbled over its performance on occasion so it would be fascinating to watch.

But it's the main work after the interval that I'm pulling today's listening piece from for you. Rachmaninov's Symphony no 2 is well known, even if you don't know the title. The 2nd movement has featured in films such as Birdman but it is the 3rd movement that those of us of a certain age will remember as a song by Eric Carmen in the 1970s. Not content with using Rachmaninov's piano concerto No 2 for All By Myself, he used sections from this movement for Never Gonna Fall in Love Again. In fact, Carmen was made to pay royalties to the Rachmaninov estate for both these songs because the original music was still copyrighted when he "borrowed" it.

Here's the 3rd Movement of Rachmaninov's Symphony AND the Eric Carmen song so you can compare and contrast. 

Here's the full programme for this evening's Prom which you can listen to live from 19:30 on Radio 3 or on the iPlayer 



Constantin Silvestri
Three Pieces for strings(11 mins)

Sergei Prokofiev
Piano Concerto No 2 in G minor(32 mins)

INTERVAL

Sergey Rachmaninov
Symphony No 2 in E minor(56 mins)
Image - Photo © Chris Christodoulou