Prom 70: Wednesday 7th September at 7.00 p.m. (Bridge, Birtwistle, Holst)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Head into outer space with Holst's planetary survey. Plus Sir Harrison Birtwistle's new Violin
Concerto - his first for a stringed instrument - and Frank Bridge's Keats-inspired symphonic poem Isabella.

Frank Bridge is at his most romantic and Lisztian in this symphonic poem , given its world premiere at the Proms by founder-conductor Henry Wood.

Birtwistle's Violin Concerto was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Christian Tetzlaff and unveiled by him in March to rave reviews. The composer himself studied the clarinet, although he says, 'I had some violin lessons at school, so I have a memory of the physical feel of the instrument, in a sense. It's rather like remembering how to bowl a leg break in cricket, even if I couldn't do it now.'

Holst's The Planets displays astonishing verve in its orchestration and in the radicalism of much of its content for its time.

Bridge: Isabella
Harrison Birtwistle: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (UK Premiere)
Holst: The Planets

Christian Tetzlaff (violin)
Holst Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra
David Robertson (conductor)

[prokkyshosty]

Please note that the Proms Plus intro to this concert is a Q&A with Roger Wright himself at 5:15pm. So if y'all want to have your say about "t'Proms", here's your chance. Don't forget to bring your bees AND your bonnets!

[ucanseetheend]

Who else can use their imagination as to what Birtwistle's Violin Concerto is going to sound like and will decide they're going to give it a miss? Or maybe we can have a poll on how many minutes into it a listener can last?

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Who else can use their imagination as to what Birtwistle's Violin Concerto is going to sound like and will decide they're going to give it a miss? Or maybe we can have a poll on how many minutes into it a listener can last?

Well, it's got to be less dull than the previous night's Rihm.

[Nick Armstrong]

Don't forget to bring your bees AND your bonnets!

I think bats and belfrys are equally likely to feature.

[Ventilhorn]

Head into outer space with Holst's planetary survey. Plus Sir Harrison Birtwistle's new Violin
Concerto - his first for a stringed instrument - and Frank Bridge's Keats-inspired symphonic poem Isabella.

Frank Bridge is at his most romantic and Lisztian in this symphonic poem , given its world premiere at the Proms by founder-conductor Henry Wood.

Birtwistle's Violin Concerto was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Christian Tetzlaff and unveiled by him in March to rave reviews. The composer himself studied the clarinet, although he says, 'I had some violin lessons at school, so I have a memory of the physical feel of the instrument, in a sense. It's rather like remembering how to bowl a leg break in cricket, even if I couldn't do it now.'

Far from heading into outer space, if HB's latest work is out there, I think I shall keep my feet firmly on Good Mother Earth this evening.

VH

[Petrushka]

I heard the Boston first perfirmance of the HB Violin Concerto on the radio and I think many of you will be pleasantly surprised.

[Nachtigall]

Listening to Uranus at the moment but so glad I'm not there among the serial coughers and determined clappers. Thank goodness the atmosphere-destroyers have been stymied by the absence of any break between Uranus and Neptune.

[BBMmk2]

Coughers, clappers, goodness knows whatelsers!! They should all be shot at dawn! Spoils the atmosphere!

[Flay]

But there is no atmosphere between planets....

I'll get me spacesuit...

[Flay]

Seriously I thought Mars started rather pedantically, but what a stunning recapitulation!

[jayne lee wilson]

Yes, that was a high point in the performance, fairly thundered out of the speakers, but a shame the engineer seemed to pull back the level towards the end of both Mars and Jupiter... (listening on HDs as usual).

Wonderful Birtwistle! The coda to this great landscape of adventures - the violence, reflections upon the violence - as darkly memorable as any of his recent pieces... another one of Night's Black Birds, whistling in the dark!

No time for more now, kitchen beckons... back soon!

Seriously I thought Mars started rather pedantically, but what a stunning recapitulation!

[Simon Biazeck]

Coughers, clappers, goodness knows whatelsers!! They should all be shot at dawn! Spoils the atmosphere!

I'm sorry to say I haven't been able to attend a single Prom this season but I have not missed the ostinato of extraneous noises. Even on air it's annoying. A friend of mine in attendance recently commented on it saying he thought one woman must have had a fur-ball! It's the same in West End theatre. Interestingly, they seemed entirely silent at the very end - so they CAN be quiet! Great concert though! I wished they'd chosen some later Bridge - he was such a master of the orchestra. Holst is my hero!

[Petrushka]

Seriously I thought Mars started rather pedantically, but what a stunning recapitulation!

I thought everyone had gone to sleep - then all of a sudden it went hurtling into the abyss. The organ glissando in Uranus sounded as if the roof had collapsed. What with the coughers and applauders the Planets at the Proms is no longer an attractive prospect as far as I am concerned.

[Tony Halstead]

I'm confused... is this a positive or a negative report?