Today at the Proms - Prom 63

Continuing our daily coverage of what's on at The Proms 2019, Susan Omand has a quick look at the programme for Prom 63: Yuja Wang plays Rachmaninov ...



This is a prom that kind of does what it says on the tin. Virtuoso pianist Yuja Wang does indeed play Rachmaninov, at least for the first half. Rachmaninov's 3rd Piano Concerto is said to be one of the most technically challenging of all piano concertos, a daunting prospect for even the pianist Josef Hoffman, to whom it was dedicated, who never publicly played it. If you have ever watched the biopic Shine, starring Geoffrey Rush as the pianist David Helfgott, this is the music that the plot of the film revolves around.



After the interval, something more sedate with Brahms' Symphony No 2. Thankfully this one only took one summer to compose, rather than the 21 years of his first Symphony, and it's a cheery little piece, often compared favourably to Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. It's also got a very familiar theme throughout the first movement as Brahms borrowed from another of his own works, Wiegenlied.



Guten Abend, gute Nacht all.







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 



Sergei Rachmaninov
Piano Concerto No 3 in D minor(41 mins)

INTERVAL

Johannes Brahms
Symphony No 2 in D major(43 mins)
Image - Photo © Chris Christodoulou