A Night at the BBC Proms

Senior musicians had a chance to experience one of this year’s BBC Proms concerts at the Royal Albert Hall earlier this month. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales performed a sparkling concert under the baton of Jaime Martín, and featured the talents of violinist Nemanja Radulović.

The overture to the concert was composed by the trailblazing female composer Grażyna Bacewicz, who not only broke new ground as a female composer in Poland, but continued to write music while war threatened to destroy her country. Her overture was composed in 1943, in the depths of the world war. The work itself contains a musical message of hope, with the Morse code for ‘V for victory’ – dot dot dot dash – beaten out on the timpani throughout the piece.

Next on the programme was the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto: one of the most loved and revered violin concerti, expertly played by Radulović. The violinist was not afraid to play quietly and with a great deal of nuance considering the enormous performance space, which in turn challenged the audience to lean in and listen closely. Radulović’s sense of timing and space in the second movement surely gave our violinists something to think about as they consider their own interpretation of this masterpiece.

The second half of the concert was Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet suite, where the composer utilises every orchestral colour and tone in a broad spectrum of dynamics and textures. The BBC NOW surely enjoyed performing this absolute romp of a piece, and our pupils showed their enthusiasm with a spot of headbanging through Montagues and Capulets.