Prom 41: Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto with Behzod Abduraimov

Live at the BBC Proms: BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and conductor Thomas Dausgaard perform music by Nielsen; and Behzod Abduraimov joins for Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1.

Presented by Martin Handley, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London.

Ravel: La valse
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1

8.20 Interval: Daniel Grimley talks to Martin Handley about the music of Nielsen.

8.40 Part 2
Nielsen: Symphony No. 3, ‘Sinfonia espansiva’

Behzod Abduraimov (piano)
Elizabeth Watts (soprano)
Benjamin Appl (baritone)
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra
Thomas Dausgaard (conductor)

‘Sizzling’ was how The Guardian described the playing of pianist Behzod Abduraimov. For The Arts Desk, meanwhile, he’s a ‘rare and enchanting musician’: the ideal performer, in other words, for a masterwork as witty, as joyful and as impulsive as Beethoven’s sunlit First Piano Concerto. That’s the burst of light and joy at the heart of this concert from the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under its Chief Conductor Thomas Dausgaard, but there’s no letting up after the interval, as Dausgaard conducts a symphony he’s made his own: Nielsen’s ebullient Sinfonia espansiva. Ravel’s La valse sets things spinning: a sumptuous, sinister evocation of an era – and a culture – waltzing ever closer to the abyss.