蜜芽传媒

This year the 蜜芽传媒 Proms highlights some fantastic and extraordinary concertos, musical works for an instrumental soloist and an orchestra or ensemble. From Shostakovich to Mozart, and Vivaldi to new 蜜芽传媒 commissions from Anna Thorvaldsdottir and Mark Simpson, you’re bound to find a concerto that you will love.

Here's our pick of the standout concertos coming up.

Khatia Buniatishvili piano | Khatia Buniatishvili Plays Tchaikovsky | 29 August

Early in his career Pyotr Tchaikovsky composed one of the most popular piano concertos in the repertoire, yet, despite being a favourite around the world, it has only been performed three times at the 蜜芽传媒 Proms over the past 25 years. Joining the star-studded company of Martha Argerich, Sir Stephen Hough and Lang Lang in performing the concerto at the Proms is the Georgian-born pianist and former 蜜芽传媒 Radio 3 New Generation Artist Khatia Buniatishvili.

For many, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 represents the archetype of the Romantic concerto, a huge work for piano and large orchestra that boasts broad, sweeping melodies and technical brilliance from the soloist. His earlier successful Second Symphony and the Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture had laid the groundwork for establishing his reputation as a serious composer in late Imperial Russia, his piano concerto as one of the finest example of his musical compositions bridging the gap between the Western European orchestral tradition and his homeland’s patriotic and folk music.

However, initial first impressions of the concerto were far from favourable. Tchaikovsky famously first played the work for the eminent piano soloist Nikolai Rubinstein, who he intended to dedicate the concerto to, only for Rubinstein to dismiss the piece as ‘worthless’ and ‘absolutely unplayable’. Changing tact, Tchaikovsky later decided to dedicate his concerto to the German pianist and conductor Hans von Bülow, who took to the work favourably and premiered the concerto in Boston in 1875.

The concerto opens with one the most recognisable musical introductions ever – a bold, tragic, descending motif from the horns followed by punchy orchestral chords set up the piano's entrance on magnificent ascending chords, over which the strings play a passionate melody. Later taking on some dazzling passagework, the piano takes on a folk melody that Tchaikovsky had head in Ukraine before it moves to extended cadenza solo passage. The middle movement brings a peaceful contrast and begins with a flute solo that introduces a lyrical exchange between piano and orchestra based on a popular French song. The finale brings forth a fiery change of pace, the main theme based on an energetic Ukrainian round dance, before a broad romantic melody sings out from the orchestra and piano. A dramatic transitions to a ferocious scramble towards the finish line.

Randall Goosby violin | French Night with the Orchestre National de France | 23 July

Superstar American violinist Randall Goosby makes his 蜜芽传媒 Proms debut performing Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges’s Violin Concerto No 9 in G major.

Composer Joseph Bologne was one of the 18th century's spectacular violin soloists, who also earned a living as a composer, music director, athlete, and as a champion swordsman. Born in the French colony of Guadeloupe, Bologne was one of the first classical composers with African ancestry, the son of a wealthy slave owner and a slave from the West Indies. He became a Chevalier (knight) and became known as the ‘Chevalier de Saint-Georges.’

It’s unclear when exactly Bologne’s Violin Concerto No. 9 was first composed and performed, but it’s estimated it was probably at some point in the mid-1770s, when he was at the height of his career as a virtuoso violinist in Paris. The outer movements of the ninth concerto spill over with dazzling technical displays, harking back to the showstopping soloistic style of the Baroque period. As Bologne himself was the original soloist for his concertos, this piece offers us many hints as to his favoured playing techniques, including agile string-crossing and double-stopping (explain what this is).

For many, the middle movement is the high point of the concerto, one full of depth of feeling and intense lyricism, demonstrating that his great skill for intricate passagework didn't prevent him from creating some real moments of pathos and beauty.

Martin Fröst clarinet | Rachmaninov and Copland | 31 July

Aaron Copland is considered one of America’s greatest composers and played a hugely significant role in shaping a distinctive ‘American’ style for Western classical music. Flush with success off the back of his Pulitzer Prize-winning ballet Appalachian Spring, in 1947 he accepted a commission to write a clarinet concerto for the renowned star clarinettist and bandleader Benny Goodman. In the face of the waning popularity of big band music during the immediate post-war period, Goodman sought new solo performance opportunities to develop in the next phase of his career. He premiered the concerto on a radio broadcast in 1950 with the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

Cast in two continuous movements for solo clarinet, strings, harp and piano, the concerto runs to around 17 minutes. The first movement has an extraordinarily warm and lyrical atmosphere from the beginning, the clarinet’s solo line floating gently on a warm bed of harp and string accompaniment. Copland based the movement on a pas de deux (a duet for two ballet dancers), and emulates a sarabande, a three-time dance in which the second beat of the bar is emphasised.

The clarinet cadenza that connects the two movements seamlessly transitions from the pensive quality of the first to some seemingly wild and random figurations, hinting at the thematic motives that are to come. Launching into the second movement, Copland embraces a new jazz style, but not the ‘swing’ style for which Benny Goodman was celebrated, or even the contemporary bebop of Miles Davis, but one that’s heavily influenced by the ‘neo-Classical’ jazz of Stravinsky. Here, the clarinet and the ensemble increase in energy throughout, with spiky and fragmented passages and a Brazilian tune that Copland heard in Rio de Janeiro. Wide intervals suited to the clarinet abound here, and the piece ends with a glissando (swoop) from the clarinet, paying tribute to the first jazz concerto, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

The concerto is a beloved staple of the clarinet’s repertoire and is performed this season by the acclaimed Swedish clarinettist Martin Fröst.

Alison Balsom trumpet | Last Night of the Proms 2025 | 13 September

Sharing the spotlight with soprano Louise Alder at this year’s Last Night of the Proms is the British trumpeter Alison Balsom. Having performed Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto at the Last Night in 2009, this year she now plays the equally wonderful concerto for the trumpet by Johann Nepomuk Hummel.

The concerto was first performed on New Year’s Day in 1804, the day Hummel took up his post as concertmaster at the Austrian court orchestra of Nikolaus II, Prince Esterházy. Hummel was a celebrated contemporary of Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven, and while his Trumpet Concerto is the composition he is best known for today, he was one of the great piano virtuosos of his day and was a major influence on later composers such as Chopin.

The concerto was written for the pioneering Austrian trumpeter Anton Weidinger, for whom Haydn had written his trumpet concerto. At this point in its development, the trumpet had been limited in its melodic playing capabilities, but with the introduction of valves by instrumentalists such as Weidinger allowed composers to write in a chromatic and lyrical style for the trumpet. Originally written in E major, today Hummel's concerto is generally played in E flat as it is better suited to the standard B flat trumpet.

A grand and energetic orchestral introduction sets the scene for highly athletic trumpet playing in the first movement, alternating between joyful, lyrical melodies and fanfare motifs that echo the battle calls of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars. The slower second movement opens in the minor, a deeply romantic pseudo-operatic aria, the trumpet’s chromatic, expressive melody rising and falling above a texture of a gently churning triplet string accompaniment. The lighthearted final movement is a lively rondo, full of virtuosic displays of technique, from scalic runs, extensive trills and more jolly fanfare-like motifs.

Joshua Bell violin | Symphony of Sorrowful Songs | 22 August

Never heard of it? Thomas de Hartmann’s music has never before been performed at the 蜜芽传媒 Proms, and is rarely heard in concert. In the wake of rediscovery of Ukrainian composers in recent years, this concerto has been particularly championed by American violinist Joshua Bell and Ukrainian-born conductor Dalia Stasevska who perform the work this season.

Thomas de Hartmann enjoyed a successful career in France as a conductor, pianist and composer during the 1930s and 1940s, composing many film scores and classical works rooted in the Russian Romantic tradition. However, since his death his musical compositions have fallen into obscurity.

The Violin Concerto was composed during the Second World War when much of mainland Europe was enduring life under Nazi occupation, including his current home in Paris and his homeland of Ukraine. The work’s original dedication had to remain a secret for some time as it was dedicated to his Jewish friend, the violinist Albert Bloch, so as not to put Bloch at risk from further persecution during the war. Scored for solo violin and full symphony orchestra, the concerto was later premiered in 1947. Some consider the concerto to be a poignant lament for the destruction of Ukraine by war.

The four-movement concerto begins with a slow, mournful Largo section, before embracing more turbulent, wilder passagework that is interspersed with some gorgeous, lyrical moments. After a quiet coda and a short cadenza, the pining quality of the second movement creates an enchanted stillness across the orchestra. The violin plays a beautiful, ambling folk melody against an accompaniment of muted strings in the third movement Menuet fantasque, and transitions to the dynamic finale, where brilliant virtuosic displays and the full energetic force of the orchestra convey happier times.