Proms 2023 Prom 20: Korngold’s Violin Concerto

Cinematic drama stalks through a concert that opens with Bernard Herrmann’s suite from his score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and continues with the luscious Romanticism of Korngold’s richly melodic Violin Concerto, for which the composer – a former child prodigy – borrowed themes from his own Golden Era Hollywood scores. No stranger to the stage, if not the screen, Prokofiev in his Third Symphony drew on music from his hypnotic Symbolist opera The Fiery Angel to create a work heavy with bells, cymbals, sinister dances and flashes of musical moonlight. Spanish conductor Gustavo Gimeno makes his Proms debut, leading the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Image: Vadim Gluzman © Marco Borggreve