Moviefone App Coming Soon. Sign Up Now to Get Notified!

2012 Episodes

1. First Night of the Proms

July 13th, 20123 hr

Mark-Anthony Turnage - Canon Fever (3 mins) Elgar - Overture 'Cockaigne (In London Town)' (15 mins) Delius - Sea Drift (25 mins) Tippett - Suite for the Birthday of Prince Charles (16 mins) Elgar - Coronation Ode (33 mins)

5. Strauss, Saariaho & Sibelius

July 19th, 20123 hr

Making his Proms debut as the BBC Philharmonic's Chief Conductor, Juanjo Mena explores Strauss the impatient visionary, whose Also sprach Zarathustra was famously used on the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Strauss's Four Last Songs exude a sense of calm resignation suffused with autumn light. After the interval, a major UK premiere from Kaija Saariaho, whose own music is lit by atmosphere and mood. Inspired by the autobiography of Ingmar Bergman, the Swedish film director, Laterna magica includes sections in which players whisper extracts over an instrumental murmur. To conclude, the hard-won luminescence of Sibelius's (unintended) symphonic farewell.

7. Handel – Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks

August 4th, 20123 hr

Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel make their Proms debut in this free Late Night Prom, giving Handel's three Water Music suites and Fireworks Music the big-band, period-instrument treatment. Niquet directs an expanded group of up to 80 musicians to evoke resplendent royal occasions on the River Thames and in Green Park, offering a new slant on London's favourite part pieces.

9. Beethoven Cycle – Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2

July 20th, 20123 hr

Daniel Barenboim directs his first Beethoven symphony cycle in London – and becomes the first conductor since Henry Wood in 1942 to survey all nine symphonies in a single Proms season. His dynamic West–Eastern Divan Orchestra – famously bringing together Arab and Israeli players to form less 'an orchestra for peace' than 'an orchestra against ignorance' – goes far beyond the symbolic in its goal of building bridges through music. Expect further fireworks as Barenboim pairs Beethoven's revolutionary classics with music by one of today's senior musical figures, the ever-innovative composer-conductor Pierre Boulez, with whom Barenboim first collaborated in the mid-1960s

10. Beethoven Cycle – Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4

July 21st, 20123 hr

Daniel Barenboim and his youthful ensemble relish the energy of Beethoven's Fourth Symphony before tackling the 'Eroica', one of the irrefutable mould-breakers of classical music. Between these peaks, Boulez's Dialogue de l'ombre double introduces another kind of theatre, the clarinet's electronic double becoming more 'real' than the soloist physically present.

12. Beethoven Cycle – Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6

July 26th, 20123 hr

Daniel Barenboim's complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies reaches its mid-point, as he conducts his ensemble of young Arab and Israeli musicians, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, in a programme that includes both the Pastoral Symphony and that most iconic of all orchestral masterpieces, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Alongside, Barenboim programmes two short works by Pierre Boulez - Memoriale for flute and ensemble, and Messagesquisse, which showcases the virtuosity of the orchestra's cello section

13. Beethoven Cycle – Symphonies Nos. 7 & 8

July 24th, 20103 hr

Beethoven Symphony No. 8 in F major (25 mins) Pierre Boulez Anthèmes 2 (25 mins) INTERVAL Beethoven Symphony No. 7 in A major (35 min) Michael Barenboim violin IRCAM live electronics West–Eastern Divan Orchestra Daniel Barenboim conductor Listen again BBC Proms: 2012 Season: Proms Plus: 24/07/2012Discover the music More from Radio 3 Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 Delve into Beethoven's paean to rhythm. . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beethoven Pierre Boulez Daniel Barenboim -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Beethoven - Symphony No 8 (Excerpt) BBC Proms 2012: Beethoven: Symphony No 7 in A major (Excerpt)Programme notes -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- About this event Daneil Barenboim continues his survey of Beethoven – whose music, he believes, 'speaks to all people'. Tonight, two Beethoven symphonies of dancing athleticism and universal appeal frame one of Pierre Boulez's mesmerising extensions of earlier works: Anthèmes 2 is scored for violin and live electronics and its serenely beautiful expressivity may come as a surprise. Beethoven's ebullient Seventh, famously dubbed 'the apotheosis of dance', was the last piece conducted by Proms founder-conductor Henry Wood.

18. Beethoven Cycle – Symphony No. 9, 'Choral'

July 27th, 20123 hr

Beethoven Symphony No. 9 in D minor, 'Choral' (77 mins) Anna Samuil soprano Waltraud Meier mezzo-soprano René Pape bass National Youth Choir of Great Britain West–Eastern Divan Orchestra Daniel Barenboim conductor About this event Daniel Barenboim’s Beethoven cycle reaches its climax with a youthful take on the traditional annual Proms performance of the Ninth, perhaps the richest, most provocative statement in Western art music. An impressive team of soloists joins the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra to project the finale’s inclusive vision of hope, reconciliation and hard-won triumph. What better to mark today’s opening of the London 2012 Olympics than Beethoven’s ultimate hymn to universal brotherhood?

20. The Wallace and Gromit Prom

July 29th, 20123 hr

Wallace & Gromit appear in a new Proms adventure, before a screening of A Matter of Loaf and Death – plus classical favourites.

23. Vaughan Williams, Ireland, Delius & Walton

July 31st, 20123 hr

Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (16 mins) Ireland - These Things Shall Be (22 mins) Delius - The Walk to the Paradise Garden (10 mins) Walton - Belshazzar's Feast (36 mins) Jonathan Lemalu: bass-baritone London Brass BBC Symphony Chorus BBC National Chorus of Wales BBC National Orchestra of Wales Tadaaki Otaka, Conductor Tadaaki Otaka, a notable enthusiast of British music, opens with Vaughan Williams’s much loved classic before revisiting a BBC commission that has fallen into neglect in the half-century since its composer’s death: Ireland’s These Things Shall Be is a mini-oratorio with a utopian text. The massed choirs and the commanding bass baritone of former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Jonathan Lemalu return after the interval to animate Walton’s brazen Old Testament tale, but first we hear from another anniversary composer, here at his most poignant.

26. Bach – Mass in B minor

August 2nd, 20123 hr

All Seasons

2024

2024

Jul 19, 2024
2023

2023

Jul 14, 2023
2022

2022

Jul 15, 2022
2021

2021

Jul 30, 2021
2020

2020

Aug 28, 2020
2019

2019

Jul 19, 2019
2018

2018

Jul 13, 2018
2017

2017

Jul 14, 2017
2015

2015

Jul 17, 2015
2013

2013

Jul 12, 2013
2012

2012

Jul 13, 2012
2011

2011

Jul 15, 2011
2010

2010

Jul 16, 2010
2005

2005

Jul 19, 2005
1947

1947

Sep 6, 1947
Specials

Specials

Jul 27, 2013