Prom 55Berliner Philharmoniker with Kirill Petrenko

Part of the BBC Proms.The first of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s two Proms this season comprises a pair of musical love letters. One is to a person: Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto was written for his wife Clara (whose own concerto is performed on the First Night). It’s a work whose supple and sensual music offers touching insights into one of the most passionate musical romances of the 19th century. The other was written to a country. In Ma vlast Bedrich Smetana – one of this year’s Czech anniversary composers, born 200 years ago – transferred all his love for his Bohemian homeland into a majestic sequence of six symphonic poems: pictures of his country’s landscape and history. With the exceptional pianist Vi´kingur Olafsson for company, Kirill Petrenko conducts his illustrious orchestra in music that comes straight from the heart.