Prom 41 – Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with Behzod Abduraimov

Part of the BBC Proms.

Waltzes whirl through this programme, as the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and its Chief Conductor Thomas Dausgaard present the first of two consecutive Proms pairing one of Carl Nielsen’s groundbreaking symphonies with one of Beethoven’s eloquent piano concertos. A ‘cosmic waltz’ propels us onto a powerful, elemental trajectory in Nielsen’s Third Symphony, before nature takes a simpler, more bucolic form in the later movements. Solos from British soprano Elizabeth Watts and German-British baritone Benjamin Appl provide the climax to the sumptuous second movement. Ravel’s dizzying La valse captures the heightened pleasures and tragic collapse of Vienna. Behzod Abduraimov – described by The Independent as ‘the most perfectly accomplished pianist of his generation’ – is the soloist in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto.