BBC Proms Season 63
The World's Greatest Classical Music Festival. The BBC Proms is a classical music festival held every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and in recent years has explored an innovative series of Proms around the UK with concerts in all four nations. Its aim: to bring the best in classical music to the widest possible audience, which remains true to founder-conductor Henry Wood’s original vision in 1895. Whether you are a classical connoisseur or think classical music isn’t for you, there is something for everyone in the eight-week stretch of concerts.
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BBC Proms Season 63 Full Episode Guide
A trio of works from America. Copland's great Third Symphony - with its portrayal of the wide, open spaces of North America - includes a striking reprise of the classic Fanfare for the Common Man at the start of the last movement. The symphony dates from the end of the Second World War and captures something of the sense of optimism of the American people at the time. From 25 years earlier, though sounding far more recent, comes Edgard Varèse's Amériques, whose title, he claimed, was 'symbolic of discoveries, of new worlds on Earth, in the sky or in the minds of men'; the first work that the Frenchman completed after arriving in New York, this still strikingly original score was premiered in Philadelphia by Leopold Stokowski. So too was Rachmaninov's Fourth (and last) Piano Concerto, also composed in the USA, where the composer had settled after leaving Russia in 1917. Rachmaninov himself was the soloist at the 1927 premiere; tonight it's the fearlessly virtuosic Boris Berezovsky.
John Wilson and his hand-picked Orchestra celebrate 75 years of MGM musicals with songs from unforgettable movie classics, including The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St Louis, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, High Society, Gigi and Singin' in the Rain. Amazingly, although all the original orchestral parts were lost when the studio destroyed its music library to make way for a car park, Wilson has succeeded in reconstructing the scores by painstakingly transcribing each soundtrack by ear. He is joined by starry singers from the classical and musical theatre worlds, as well as by the elite Maida Vale Singers
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