| Orchestra or Band | City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra |
| Set List | 'Symphony No.2 in B Major', Gipps,
'The Exterminating Angel Symphony', T Ades
INTERVAL
'Symphony No.3 in F Major', Brahms |
| Performance Notes | In 2021, the BBC Proms returns to the Royal Albert Hall for a summer of live music, as it has done every year since 1941. With 52 concerts over 44 days, featuring 30 orchestras and ensembles and more than 2,000 musicians, this ambitious season promises a celebration of live music on a scale not seen since before the pandemic. From the power of a symphony orchestra to the sheer joy of a single performer on the Halls magnificent organ, this summer we look forward to coming together through music. Every Prom will be live on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds.
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Mirga Grainyte-Tyla champion the music of a too-long neglected composer. A pupil of Vaughan Williams, Ruth Gipps started her career as an oboist with what was then the City of Birmingham Orchestra in 1944, before becoming established as a composer. Her Symphony No. 2 takes a wide-screen, cinematic view of the Second World War, embracing exhilaration, anxiety and, finally, ecstatic rejoicing. Conflict of a very different kind runs through The Exterminating Angel Symphony by Thomas Ades (50 this year), inspired by Louis Bunuels Surrealist film. Brahmss Third Symphony strikes a more autumnal tone, inspired by a visit to the River Rhine in 1883. The critic Eduard Hanslick pronounced it artistically the most nearly perfect of the composers symphonies to date.
London premiere 'The Exterminating Angel Symphony', Thomas Ades.
The season was shortened to six, rather than eight, weeks because of the financial risk to the BBC not knowing audience sizes due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. |
| Related Archival Material | Prospectus (RAHE/1/2021/5),
Programme (RAHE/1/2021/13) |