About This Show
Part of the BBC Proms.
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra makes its first Proms appearance under Chief Conductor Designate Kazuki Yamada with one of the great Romantic symphonies. Charged with nostalgic yearning, swelling through the gorgeous slow movement and bursting out in an ecstatic finale, Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2 finds echo in the late-Romantic warmth and full-bodied lyricism of Ethel Smyth’s Concerto for Violin and Horn, dedicated to Proms founder-conductor Henry Wood. Two rising stars – violinist Elena Urioste and horn player Ben Goldscheider – are the soloists in a virtuosic work whose composer is finally reclaiming her place as one of the leading British voices of her generation. The concert opens with the vivacious overture from Glinka’s Pushkin-inspired opera Ruslan and Lyudmila.
