Creating a new public for classical music

Béla Bartók: Dance Suite
Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird – suite (1919 version)

BBC Symphony Orchestra
Péter Eötvös, conductor

The 2019 season of seven specially selected broadcasts from this year's BBC Promenade concerts from London's Royal Albert Hall opens with a tribute to Henry Wood, the founder of the Proms who was born 150 years ago. Wood was deeply committed to new music and introduced well over seven hundred scores to the British public, including the two works in this BBC Prom. Bartok's Dance Suite was written for the 1923 anniversary celebrations of the Hungarian capital and became one of the composer’s best-loved scores. The first performance of Stravinsky's Firebird in Paris in 1910 not only turned the young composer into a celebrity but also marked the start of a new direction in ballet music.
Introducing the concert is BBC Radio 3’s Andrew McGregor and he is joined by Marina Frolova-Walker, Russian Professor in Music History at Cambridge University.