Here's your guide to today's BBC Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall. We've got everything you need to know about today's concert (Thursday 8 August), which features music from Beethoven, Brahms, and the much-missed American composer Sarah Gibson, who sadly passed away earlier this summer.
Need more Proms? Visit our unmissable 2024 BBC Proms guide for all the info on every 2024 BBC Proms concert.
What's on at the BBC Proms today?
Today's Prom, Prom 26, features two cornerstones of the classical repertoire, plus a poignant tribute to a much-loved classical composer whom we sadly lost earlier this summer.
There's a performance of Beethoven's much-loved Violin Concerto. We voted Beethoven's concerto one of the greatest violin concertos of all time. However, it hasn't had the smoothest of journeys towards this acclaim.
Its first performance (by Franz Clement, a composer, conductor, performer and friend of Beethoven's) was not a success. After this inauspicious start, the piece remained very little known for decades. That situation changed when, in 1844, the 12-year-old violinist Joseph Joachim presented the work to great acclaim, with a certain Felix Mendelssohn conducting.
We will also hear warp & weft, a 2021 orchestral work by American pianist and composer Sarah Gibson. We were to hear the world premiere of Gibson's beyond the beyond, a BBC commission, but the composer tragically died in July, at the age of just 38, with the work still unfinished. Instead, the BBC Philharmonic will pay her the tribute of performing this popular orchestral work.
Tonight's major work is Brahms's monumental and profoundly moving Symphony No. 4. This great symphony has many memorable features, including a noble and tragic Allegro first movement, an exuberant, Scherzo-like third movement, and a Finale of impressive complexity and increasing emotional tension, which takes the form of a passacaglia. A symphony of immense power, emotional weight and intellectual rigour, Brahms's Fourth is one of the greatest works from the Romantic era, as well as one of the greatest symphonies of all time.
Who is performing at tonight's Prom?
Performing at Prom 26 are the BBC Philharmonic orchestra and conductor Anja Bihlmaier, who as we reported has just been named the orchestra's principal guest conductor. The soloist for the Beethoven concerto is the German violinist Tobias Feldmann.
Is today's BBC Prom on TV?
Today's Prom is not being broadcast on television. Don't worry, though: you'll be able to hear it on BBC Radio 3, as you can all the BBC Proms.
What time does tonight's Prom start?
Prom 26 kicks off at 7.30pm.
And how much are tickets for the BBC Proms today?
Tickets for Prom 26 are priced between £10 and £44. As always, you also have the option of joining those Proms phenomena, the Prommers, and queuing for the chance of one of the 800 £8 tickets issued for each Prom.
