First broadcast by BBC Symphony Orchestra

Image: the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult at the Queen's Hall for a Promenade concert.

The first broadcast performance by the new BBC Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Adrian Boult, was on 22 October 1930, in a concert relayed from the Queen's Hall, London. The concert featured works by Wagner, Brahms, and Ravel, and Saint-Saens Cello Concerto in A minor, with soloist Guilhermina Suggia. Just three years later Arturo Toscanini was able to remark that Boult had created "one of the finest orchestras in the world".

The Symphony Orchestra, of 114 full-time players, was formed to ensure the quality of performance in BBC programmes. Its Sunday Evening Concerts drew the biggest audience of the week and brought classical music into living rooms up and down the land. From the start it was committed to new music, and early in its life gave UK premieres of works by composers such as Ravel, Schoenberg and Holst. In its 80-year life the orchestra has performed over 1000 specially commissioned works, by composers from Adams to Weir.

Today - under Chief Conductor Jiri Belohlavek - the BBC Symphony Orchestra continues to be the mainstay of the Proms, and gives concerts at home and abroad, where it is widely admired. All concerts are broadcast on Radio 3.