Prom 66 – Beethoven, Betsy Jolas and Mahler

Part of the BBC Proms.

‘This is the sound of nature, not music,’ Mahler wrote of the opening of his Symphony No. 1. Birds sing and flowers bloom, fruit ripens and a storm swells and dies away; nature’s cycle from life to death runs through a work that fulfils the composer’s all-encompassing vision of the symphony. Nature becomes a battleground in Beethoven’s ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, as gods and mortals clash in the vivid landscape of Classical mythology. Karina Canellakis conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a concert that also includes the world premiere of a new piano concerto by Franco-American composer Betsy Jolas: in the form of a suite evoking today’s playlist-driven listening habits, these ‘bTunes’ are Betsy’s