BBC Proms 2020 Season - Klaus Tennstedt conducts Beethoven [1991] (320kbps .mp3)



In 2020, BBC Radio 3 is bringing together musical greats, from the past and the present, in one extraordinary Proms season. Radio 3 is broadcasting the best of four decades of unmissable Proms concerts and tonight Petroc Trelawny presents an unmissable occasion as the legendary German conductor Klaus Tennstedt leads a searingly intense performance of Beethoven's last symphony.



01. Schubert - Symphony No. 5 in B flat major, D485

01a. Introduction to Barbirolli’s Schubert



Halle Orchestra

Sir John Barbirolli, conductor



02. Beethoven - Symphony No. 9 in D minor, ‘Choral’

02a. Introduction to Tennstedt’s Beethoven



Brighton Festival Chorus

London Philharmonic Choir

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Jane Eaglen (soprano)

Kathleen Kuhlmann (mezzo-soprano)

Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor)

John Tomlinson (bass)

Klaus Tennstedt (conductor)

Christopher Larkin (conductor)

(From BBC Proms 1991, 31 August)



03. Janacek - Taras Bulba [1981]

03a. Introduction to Rozhdestvensky’s Taras Bulba



Bela Dekany (violin)

BBC Symphony Orchestra

Gennady Rozhdestvensky, conductor



BBC Proms: A fixture of almost every Proms season, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony received a celebrated performance at the 1991 festival by Klaus Tennstedt, at that time Conductor Laureate of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Tennstedt led the orchestra alongside choirs from London and Brighton in Beethoven’s great hymn to humanity, whose last movement features the composer’s profoundly optimistic vocal and choral setting of Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’.



Before we hear the Beethoven, Petroc Trelawny introduces a recording made at the BBC Proms on 9 August 1968, in which Sir John Barbirolli conducted the Halle Orchestra in Schubert's Fifth Symphony.

After the rousing performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, we've a chance to hear the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky at the BBC Proms in 1981 in a searing performance of Janacek's powerful and dramatic work, Taras Bulba.