Welcome to your guide to the BBC Proms concert for Friday, 23 August. And a very fine concert it is too, featuring an evocative masterpiece by the great Claude Debussy, and one of the 20th century's very greatest piano concertos.
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What's on at the BBC Proms today?
Today's Prom 44 opens with the beautiful tone poem D’un soir triste by the French composer Lili Boulanger. Lili was the sister of Nadia Boulanger, one of the most influential classical music teachers of any era. Sadly, Lili only lived to the age of 24, dying tragically young after suffering with bronchial pneumonia and, latterly, intestinal tuberculosis. The atmospheric D'un soir triste was one of the last pieces she was able to compose by her own hand, without help in writing down the score.
Continuing with the French theme, we'll also hear La mer, Claude Debussy's masterful depiction of the sea. Composed between 1903 and 1905 and often described as a 'symphonic sketch', La mer is a vivid, three-movement evocation of the sea's moods, movements, and mysteries through Impressionistic soundscapes. It has been variously described as ‘the best symphony written by a Frenchman’, and ‘the musical equivalent of Monet’s impressionist paintings, and those delicate, feathery prints by Hokusai’.
Tonight's Prom also includes a performance of La valse by Debussy's compatriot Maurice Ravel. Thought to be a depiction of the birth, decay and destruction of the waltz form, and the similar lapse in European civilisation in the years after World War I, it's perhaps Ravel's most unashamedly Romantic work.
Interestingly, Debussy and Ravel knew each other well, and indeed the former acted as mentor to the latter. But they didn't always see eye to eye: learn more in our exploration of classical music's greatest rivalries.
- Lili Boulanger, Debussy and Ravel all feature in our 25 greatest French composers of all time
After La mer, tonight's other major work is Prokofiev's dazzling, mercurial Piano Concerto No. 3. Surely one of the greatest piano concertos of all time, this fizzing, adrenaline-packed showcase of pianistic bravado is a favourite of many a virtuoso pianist including Martha Argerich and Yuja Wang.
Who is performing at the BBC Proms today?
Tonight's performers are the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and their principal conductor, the Israeli musician Lahav Shani. Also a concert pianist, Shani will play the dual role of soloist and conductor in Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto.
