It’s Week 6 at the BBC Proms and passport control is in overdrive with visiting orchestras! This week sees the Iceland Symphony and the Seoul Philharmonic make their Proms debuts, which should generate much excitement. As well as Schumann and Beethoven, the Iceland Symphony brings some home-grown ‘fire and ice’ in the form of Jon Leifs’ Geysir and Haukur Tómasson’s Magma, both inspired by their country’s geology.
The Seoul Philharmonic also brings local colour in the form of Unsuk Chin’s concerto for sheng (a reed mouth organ) entitled Šu. Myung-Whun Chung balances his programme out with Debussy’s seascape La mer (mostly composed in the rather unexotic Eastbourne) and Tchaikovsky’s heart-on-sleeve “Pathetique” Symphony. It will be interesting to see what tactic Chung employs to stave off the inevitable applause after the triumphant third movement scherzo…
Yet it’s not just new visiting orchestras making headlines this week. Turn to the Czech Philharmonic and the Budapest Festival Orchestras and you’ll discover two of the greatest orchestras in Europe bar none. Ivan Fischer brings his Budapest team for not one, but two fantastic looking concerts. Two Brahms symphonies (nos. 3 and 4) would be the connoisseur’s Pick of the Week, but they also play a Bank Holiday prom which is lighter in fare, with plenty of shorter pieces, in the midst of which nestles Schubert’s “Unfinished” Symphony. The Czech Philharmonic, under chief conductor Jiří Bělohlávek, offers Beethoven’s exhilarating Seventh Symphony as well as offering authentic support to Alisa Weilerstein in Dvořák’s Cello Concerto, probably the finest cello concerto in the canon (editor ducks from irate Elgar supporters!).