The festival opens with a choir of 450 and two great portraits of the sea: Sakari Oramo conducts Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony and Britten’s Four Sea Interludes as well as the world premiere of Julian Anderson’s Harmony. Pianist Stephen Hough plays Paganini variations by Rachmaninov and by featured composer Lutosławski.

Inspired by daybreak on the Kent coast, David Matthews’s A Vision of the Sea opens the BBC Philharmonic’s Prom with Juanjo Mena. Nobuyuki Tsujii is the soloist in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, a passionate upbeat to Nielsen’s life-affirming ‘Inextinguishable’ Symphony.

Sir Antonio Pappano conducts the Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome, in Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony and Mozart’s elegant ‘Haffner’ Symphony. Jan Lisiecki plays Schumann’s intimate Piano Concerto in the first of Pappano’s two Proms.

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra returns to the BBC Proms with conductor Daniel Harding. Paul Lewis is the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, its play of light and shade echoed in the same composer’s Masonic Funeral Music, Schumann’s Second Symphony and Sibelius’s Seventh.

Barry Wordsworth and the BBC Concert Orchestra, with pianists Noriko Ogawa and Kathryn Stott, offer a parade of British light and occasional music, including Arnold’s Concerto for two pianos (three hands), Bantock’s bittersweet Pierrot of the Minute, Elgar’s Nursery Suite and a medley of radio favourites.

Legendary American pianist Peter Serkin makes his Proms debut with Oliver Knussen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Stravinsky’s Concerto for piano and wind instruments. Henze’s Barcarola opens the first of this season’s concerts focusing on the music of Michael Tippett as Knussen conducts Tippett’s Symphony No. 2.

Peter Oundijan conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Nikolai Lugansky in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony and the world premiere of Naresh Sohal’s brand-new The Cosmic Dance, a celebration of ancient mythology and mathematical theory.

Gianandrea Noseda conducts the BBC Philharmonic in Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto (with soloist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet), Borodin’s Prince Igor overture, Tchaikovsky’s ‘Little Russian’ Symphony and the world premiere of Edward Cowie’s Earth Music 1 – The Great Barrier Reef.

Two works by Gustav Holst, and two from the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski. Edward Gardner directs the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Holst’s Egdon Heath and The Planets and Lutosławski’s Symphonic Variations. Louis Lortie is the soloist in Lutosławski’s Piano Concerto.

Mitsuko Uchida plays Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and its Chief Conductor, Mariss Jansons. The opium-fuelled idylls and nightmares of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique complete one of the festival’s hottest programmes.

Pianist Barry Douglas directs Camerata Ireland in music by Britten and his peers, including Young Apollo, Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Priaulx Rainier’s Movement for strings, and Shostakovich’s sparkling Piano Concerto No. 1 (featuring trumpeter Alison Balsom).

Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra play Ravel’s vivid orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and the UK premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s The Rider on the White Horse. Daniil Trifonov is the soloist in Glazunov’s Second Piano Concerto.

Kirill Karabits conducts the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in Janáček’s brassy Sinfonietta and Tchaikovsky’s ‘Polish’ Symphony (No. 3). Sunwook Kim is the soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

Kenneth Hamilton, concert pianist and Professor of Music at Cardiff University, looks at the story of the Romantic piano concerto, and at Mendelssohn's Piano Concerto in G minor.

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Robin Ticciati explore Romantic ideals of heroism and tragedy in Berlioz’s King Lear overture and Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony. George Benjamin reimagines Bach and Stephen Hough returns for Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1.

Ilan Volkov conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in the world premiere of Rzewski’s Piano Concerto (with the composer as soloist), Gerald Barry’s No other people., John White’s Chord-Breaking Machine and Morton Feldman’s late masterpiece, Coptic Light.

Antoni Witt and the Warsaw Philharmonic make their BBC Proms debut with Witold Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra, Andrzej Panufnik’s Lullaby and Tragic Overture and Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony. Alexander Melnikov is the soloist in Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

The pan-European Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester returns to the BBC Proms with conductor Philippe Jordan and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in a programme of Wagner’s overture to Rienzi, Ravel’s jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G major and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony.

BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists the Signum Quartet explore the Bartók-influenced String Quartet No. 3 of one of the 20th century’s most accomplished composers, Elizabeth Maconchy. Pianist and fellow NGA Christian Ihle Hadland joins the quartet for Brahms’s F minor Piano Quintet, another work of passion and precision.

A Bank Holiday recital exploring the lighter side of the organ. Richard Hills’s matinée includes music by John Ireland, Edward German, Eric Coates and Arthur Sullivan, as well as skirting the fringes of jazz.

Three tone-poems and a piano concerto. Vladimir Jurowski directs the London Philharmonic Orchestra in Bantock’s The Witch of Atlas, Sibelius’s Pohjola’s Daughter and Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. Anika Vavic is the soloist in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

In their second Proms appearance this summer, Vasily Petrenko and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra explore the sublime landscape of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist Christian Ihle Hadland joins them for Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto, a turning point in the composer’s development.

David Hill conducts the BBC Singers and the Choristers of Temple Church in Britten’s choral variations A Boy was Born, written when the composer was just 19 years old, and George Lloyd’s Requiem, dedicated to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales.

In the final Late Night Prom of the season, pianist Imogen Cooper plays Schubert’s late Sonata in C minor. Paul Lewis joins her for the composer’s ‘Grand Duo’, written in Slovakia in the summer of 1824 when Schubert was music-master to Marie and Caroline Esterházy.

Lorin Maazel conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in Bruckner’s monumental Eighth Symphony. Klaus Sonnleitner – the present-day successor to Bruckner as organist at St Florian’s Abbey in Linz – sets the scene with a sequence of works by Bach, one of Bruckner’s idols.