Time again for your daily BBC Proms preview from BBC Music Magazine. Below you'll find information on Prom 58, which takes place at London's Royal Albert Hall at 7.30pm (BST) on Tuesday 3rd September. It features conductor-of-the-moment Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestre de Paris, for which Mäkelä has served as music director since 2022.
Make sure you keep coming back to www.classical-music.com all the way through to the Last Night of the Proms, which takes place this year on Saturday 14 September. Every day, we'll have an informative guide to that evening's Prom. And, if you want to see the whole lot of concerts in one place (which includes chamber music concerts and weekend festivals in cities across the UK), visit our packed 2024 BBC Proms guide.
What's on at the BBC Proms today?
We begin with Claude Debussy's sultry, impressionistic orchestral masterpiece Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, a work that tore up the orchestral rule book. With its apparent lack of structure and almost improvisatory feel, the late 19th-century work deserves the epithet given by one famous fellow French composer... ‘Modern music was awakened by L’après-midi d’un faune’.
Next up is Igor Stravinsky’s tuneful and mischievous puppet-show ballet, Petrushka. This is one of the most thrilling scores ever to have come out of Paris. It's also one of the Stravinsky ballets you need to hear. Composed in 1911, Stravinsky’s music for Petrushka still sounds amazingly fresh and vibrant, even after more than a century.
After the interval comes Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique - a work particularly familiar to the Orchestre de Paris. The orchestra performed the work at its very first concert in 1967 and has done so at each of its significant milestones ever since. Berlioz's infatuation with actress Harriet Smithson led him to compose his Symphonie fantastique – only to be distracted by another woman!
Who is performing at the BBC Proms today?
Today's Prom is performed by the Orchestre de Paris, France's most illustrious orchestra. Leading the ensemble is its music director, Klaus Mäkelä. The young Finnish conductor is one of classical music's busiest maestros. Alongside his role at Orchestre de Paris, he is also chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic. And in 2027 he will become chief conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and music director of the Chicago Symphony.
How much are tickets to the BBC Proms today?
Tickets to Prom 58 are priced between £15 and £64.
You also have the option of joining the legendary Prommers for the day, and queuing outside the Royal Albert Hall for the chance of an £8 ticket.