| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 8-May-2013 BBC Hoddinott Hall | Britten and Poulenc with Adrian Partington and the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales |
.jpg) On Wednesday evening the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, conducted by Adrian Partington, presented a programme of choral music by the two musical friends Poulenc and Britten. Interestingly, most of the works also originated from a narrow three-year period in the late 1930s (Poulenc was, at this stage, in his late 30s, Britten in his mid 20s), making the juxtaposition of the composers’ works all the more pertinent.
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| 25-Aug-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 56: Knussen conducts Knussen |
 In days gone by, if you went to see a Mahler Symphony, you wouldn't feel you’d had the full experience unless Gustav himself was waving the baton. Nowadays the privilege of watching a composer conduct his own work is a somewhat rarer one, though fortunately not yet a completely extinct practice, and watching Knussen’s Symphony No. 3 with the composer himself at the helm was certainly a novel experience.Read full review... | |
| 11-Aug-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 39: Thierry Fischer ends his BBC NOW tenure with the Berlioz Requiem |
 It’s been a busy couple of months for Berlioz’s Requiem in London. First there was Sir Colin Davis’s June performance at St. Paul’s, with the reinforced London Symphony Orchestra’s brass bands arrayed around the dome. Now, on an unofficial Big Choral Weekend at the Proms there was this valedictory effort from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and their outgoing music director, Thierry Fischer.
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| 6-Aug-2012 Royal Albert Hall | Prom 32: Leonard Bernstein's Mass makes its Proms debut |
 Leonard Bernstein’s Mass is massive. And massively odd. I thought I had prepared myself for what was in store before this piece’s Proms debut on Monday, but actually I hadn’t. Maybe there isn’t really anything that can prepare you for the sight of several hundred Welsh singers, many of primary school age, gently boogying to the sounds of an orchestral frenzy, after singing a Latin translation of Psalm 130. And any work which rhymes “praying” with “Kyrie-ing” is always going to raise eyebrows, whether you know what’s going on or not.
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