PROMS 2020 Page 1 of 12 19:00 BBC Proms (m000kx6f) Gardiner favoured this earlier version of the work, conceived at Beethoven: Missa solemnis First Night of the BBC Proms 2020 a time when Beethoven was fired up by the ideals of Napoleon Friday 17 July 2020, BBC Radio 3 and the social fragmentation of society in the wake of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe French Revolution. This performance came soon after the Arnold Schoenberg Choir Tonight sees the launch of six weeks of highlights from the past experience of recording all of Beethoven's symphonies with his Ruth Ziesak (soprano) three decades of the Proms, featuring memorable performances Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique. The period Bernarda Fink (alto) from an array of the world’s greatest soloists, orchestras and instruments, he said, gave the music ‘greater transparency of Herbert Lippert (tenor) conductors. texture, more sharply differentiated character of the Neal Davies (bass) instruments and an almost visceral struggle with the musical Nikolous Harnoncourt (conductor) Marking the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, we open material.' with a mash-up of Beethoven’s nine symphonies – a First Night (From BBC Proms 1998, 11 September) commission by Iain Farrington recorded in lockdown by a Presented by Martin Handley. Grand Virtual Orchestra formed of around 320 players from 13:00 BBC Proms (m000l1m6) across the BBC Performing Groups. The Beethoven Leonore.....Hillevi Martinpelto (soprano) Proms Chamber Music: Apollon Musagète Quartet celebrations continue with the dramatic Piano Concerto No. 3 Florestan.....Kim Begley (tenor) Monday 20 July 2020, BBC Radio 3 performed at the 2017 First Night by Igor Levit, who has more Rocco.....Franz Hawlata (bass) recently reached a new audience through his live Twitter Marzelline.....Christiane Oelze (soprano) In 2020, BBC Radio 3 is bringing together musical greats, from concerts streamed direct from his Berlin apartment during the Jaquino.....Michael Schade (tenor) the past and the present, in one extraordinary Proms season. coronavirus lockdown. Don Pizarro.....Matthew Best (bass) Radio 3 is broadcasting the best of four decades of unmissable Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s riotous, hard-hitting Panic – for Don Fernando.....Geert Smits (baritone) Proms concerts. saxophone, drums and orchestra – won instant notoriety First Prisoner.....Robert Burt (tenor) following its premiere at the Last Night of the 100th- Second Prisoner.....Colin Campbell (baritoner) Webern: Langsamer Satz anniversary Proms season in 1995. Monteverdi Choir Colin Matthews: String Quartet No. 5 (European premiere) Tonight’s selection concludes with Claudio Abbado’s final Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique Beethoven: String Quartet in D major, Op. 18 No. 3 Proms appearance, in 2007, conducting the 127 players of his Sir John Eliot Gardiner (conductor) Lucerne Festival Orchestra in a rapturous performance of Apollon Musagète Quartet Mahler’s epic hymn to nature, his Third Symphony. In 2020, BBC Radio 3 is bringing together musical greats, from the past and the present, in one extraordinary Proms season. (From BBC Proms 2015, 3 August) 7.05pm Radio 3 is broadcasting the best of four decades of unmissable Ian Farrington: Beethoveniana (BBC commission: world Proms concerts. Presented by Petroc Trelawny. premiere) Grand Virtual Orchestra (BBC Performing Groups) 13:00 BBC Proms (m000l1y9) Former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists the Apollon Proms Chamber Music: Jeremy Denk Musagète Quartet present the European premiere of the Fifth c.7.15pm Sunday 19 July 2020, BBC Radio 3 String Quartet by one of Britain’s foremost living composers, Beethoven: Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor Colin Matthews. Commissioned for the 75th anniversary of the Igor Levit, piano In 2020, BBC Radio 3 is bringing together musical greats, from Tanglewood Festival in 2015, the piece remains the last work BBC Symphony Orchestra the past and the present, in one extraordinary Proms season. Matthews has written in the medium. Edward Gardner, conductor Radio 3 is broadcasting the best of four decades of unmissable (From the First Night of the BBC Proms 2017, 14 July) Proms concerts. Bookending the Quartet are Webern’s youthful Langsamer Satz – an ecstatic piece that showcases the composer’s formal skill c.7.50pm Bartók: Piano Sonata within a lyrical idiom – and Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 18 Sir Harrison Birtwistle: Panic Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 9, 'Black Mass’ No. 3. Of Beethoven’s six Op. 18 quartets, No. 3 is both the John Harle, saxophone Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111 lightest and the hardest to pin down: the scherzo is fleeting, and BBC Symphony Orchestra even the framing movements have an unusual delicacy and Sir Andrew Davis, conductor Jeremy Denk (piano) wistfulness about them. (From the Last Night of the BBC Proms 1995, 16 September) (From BBC Proms 2015, 24 August) 14:00 Afternoon Concert - BBC Proms (m000l1m8) c.8.20pm Summer Festivals Mahler: Symphony no 3 Jeremy Denk is one of America’s foremost pianists – a Monday 20 July 2020, BBC Radio 3 Anna Larsson, mezzo-soprano musician the New York Times hails as someone ‘you want to Trinity Boys Choir hear no matter what he performs’. In 2015 he put Beethoven’s A new series of great Proms concerts from recent years by BBC London Symphony Chorus final piano sonata at the core of his debut Proms recital. This orchestras and choirs, launched by the BBC National Orchestra Lucerne Festival Orchestra majestic work – which he later recorded for a 2019 disc entitled of Wales, BBC Symphony Orchestra and BBC Concert Claudio Abbado, conductor ‘c.1300–c.2000’ – blends extrovert passion with a depth that Orchestra. Presented by Fiona Talkington. (From BBC Proms 2007, 22 August) characterises all of the composer’s late works. Prokofiev: Symphony No 1 in D major (Classical Symphony) 15:00 BBC Proms (m000l289) Denk paired the Beethoven with Bartók’s only piano sonata – a Qigang Chen: Iris Dévoilée (London premiere) Christian Thielemann conducts the Staatskapelle Dresden piece strongly coloured by Hungarian folk melodies and with Meng Meng, Anu Komsi and Piia Komsi (sopranos), Jia Li Saturday 18 July 2020, BBC Radio 3 rhythmic attack – and Scriabin’s ‘Black Mass’ Piano Sonata. His (pipa), Jing Chang (zheng) and Nan Wang (erhu) most famous work in the genre, Scriabin’s sonata is a Rachmaninov: Symphony No 2 in E minor Presented by Kate Molleson disconcerting, phantasmagoric musical journey – and a gleeful BBC NOW vision of horror. Conductor Xian Zhang The Staatskapelle Dresden and its Chief Conductor Christian Thielemann open with Beethoven’s most radiant, smiling work, 18:15 Proms Preview (m000l1yk) George Benjamin: Ringed by the Flat Horizon his sublime Violin Concerto, in the sure hands of Nikolaj A Week at the Proms - Programme 1 BBC Symphony Orchestra Znaider. Sunday 19 July 2020, BBC Radio 3 Conducted by the composer After the interval this famously rich-toned orchestra digs into Starting a series of six weekly programmes, Georgia Mann Throughout the 2020 Proms season Afternoon Concert Max Reger’s affectionate and beautifully orchestrated explores the coming week's Proms together with a group of celebrates top music-making at Summer Festivals, with four Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart and finally guests, including Nicholas Kenyon, Managing Director of the weeks of concerts from 2019 summer festivals across Europe Richard Strauss’s witty and abrasive depiction of an impish Barbican Centre; Gillian Moore, Director of Music at and four weeks of great Proms performances from recent years figure from German folklore, his outlandish tone-poem telling Southbank Centre, and Helen Wallace, Artistic Director at by the BBC Orchestras and Choirs. This week features all six of ‘Till Eulenspiegel’s merry pranks’. Kings Place. As Radio 3 opens its rich archives during the BBC-associated orchestras including the Ulster Orchestra, plus summer, the guests offer tips, recommendations and the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Chorus; the BBC Beethoven: Violin Concerto rediscoveries in a unique chance to hear some historic and National Chorus of Wales will feature in two weeks' time. The memorable recordings. The most significant people and events series will also celebrate the 60th birthdays in 2020 of two great Interval: Kate Molleson in conversation with Christian coming up in the week ahead are put under a spotlight, and the British composers, George Benjamin and Mark-Anthony Thielemann. guests react to both archive interviews and fresh material Turnage, and highlight some of the best Proms premieres from recorded especially for the programme. James MacMillan's The Confession of Isobel Gowdie in 1990 to Reger: Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart the present day. R. Strauss: Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks 21:00 BBC Proms (m000l1yp) Beethoven’s Missa solemnis To launch the series today Chinese-American conductor Xian Nikolaj Znaider (violin) Sunday 19 July 2020, BBC Radio 3 Zhang makes her Proms debut in a hyper-Romantic 2015 Staatskapelle Dresden concert featuring two Russian blockbusters and a gorgeous Christian Thielemann (conductor) Presented by Tom Service recent work by her compatriot Qigang Chen. Plus George Benjamin conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra in the (From BBC Proms 2016, 8 September) Finding the terror alongside the spiritual awe, the questioning piece whose 1980 Proms premiere catapulted him to fame, and doubt as well as the faith, Beethoven’s mighty Missa solemnis is film favourites from a 2011 Prom by the BBC Concert 18:30 BBC Proms (m000l28f) a work of visceral power – a public statement of intensely Orchestra and their then Principal Conductor Keith Lockhart - Beethoven's Leonore - a landmark performance private belief. ‘From the heart – may it return to the heart!,’ the who feature throughout this week. Saturday 18 July 2020, BBC Radio 3 composer wrote at the top of a score that stretched the proportions and ambitions of the orchestral Mass to new limits.