Prom 31 – Brahms, Bruckner & Strauss

Part of the BBC Proms.

Following their performance of Wagner, Mahler and Webern at last year’s Proms, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Principal Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen return with another programme of Austro-German classics. Subtitled the ‘Romantic’, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4 is as vividly colourful as the composer’s original scenario for the work (later withdrawn) with its knights, maidens, hunting and dancing. Brahms’s variations (also known as the ‘Haydn’ Variations) provide a vivacious opener, and prize-winning Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen joins the orchestra in a sequence of songs by Richard Strauss, including the ecstatic ‘Morgen!’.