Prom 25: Storgårds conducts Tchaikovsky’s Fourth

Live at the BBC Proms: The BBC Philharmonic and their Chief Conductor John Storgårds in Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony. They are joined by Stefan Dohr for Hans Abrahamsen's glowing Horn Concerto.

Presented by Georgia Mann, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London

Schumann: Genoveva - overture
Sibelius: Pohjola's Daughter
Hans Abrahamsen: Horn Concerto

c. 8.15pm
INTERVAL - The Listening Service: Following tonight’s performance of the new Hans Abrahamsen Horn Concerto, Tom Service looks back on the role of the French horn in classical music. The instrument has long held a special place in composers' affections and has played an important role in establishing a sound world for 19th-century Romantic sensibilities. Just think of Schumann's supercharged Konzertstuck for four horns, or the central role the horn plays in Wagner's epic Ring - and in the orchestra of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Strauss and Mahler. Tom Service unwinds this 12-foot metal tube to learn more about its distinctive qualities with the help of natural horn virtuoso Anneke Scott.

c. 8.35pm
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.4 in F minor

Stefan Dohr (horn)
BBC Philharmonic
John Storgårds

Few composers captured life’s struggles as vividly as Tchaikovsky. ‘This is Fate,’ wrote the composer in 1877 as he grappled with the opening notes of his Symphony No. 4. ‘It hangs above your head like the sword of Damocles.’ By the symphony’s final pages, Tchaikovsky had wrested hope from despair. John Storgårds conducts his BBC Philharmonic in this full-blooded symphony, after the delicate, white luminosity of Hans Abrahamsen’s Horn Concerto and the brusque drama of Sibelius’s symphonic fantasia Pohjola’s Daughter, based on a tale from Finnish folk epic the Kalevala, in which the ancient bard Väinämöinen attempts to woo the beautiful Daughter of the North. The Prom opens with Schumann’s much-overlooked dramatic overture for his opera on the medieval legend of St Genevieve of Brabant, Genoveva.