Main content
Sorry, this episode is not currently available

Prom 69: Smetana, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky

Live at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Proms. Semyon Bychkov conducts the Czech Philharmonic in excerpts from operas by Tchaikovsky and Smetana, and in Shostakovich's wartime Symphony No 8 in C minor.

Live at ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Proms: Semyon Bychkov conducts the Czech Philharmonic in excerpts from Tchaikovsky and Smetana operas and Shostakovich's wartime 8th Symphony.

Presented at the Royal Albert Hall by Martin Handley.

Smetana: The Bartered Bride – overture; Three Dances
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin – Letter Scene

8.10pm
Interval Proms Plus
A verbal correspondence about the function of letters in literature and life. PS - the speakers are best-selling crime novelist Ruth Ware and Shaun Usher, editor of the popular website Letters Of Note. Hosted by New Generation Thinker Sophie Coulombeau. Produced by Zahid Warley.

Shostakovich: Symphony No 8 in C minor

Elena Stikhina (soprano)
Czech Philharmonic
Semyon Bychkov (conductor)

The dancing rhythms and swirling colours of Smetana’s opera The Bartered Bride launch a concert of big musical gestures and even bigger emotions.

First love blazes hot in the Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin, as Tatyana (sung here by soprano Elena Stikhina) pours out her heart in music as romantic as anything the composer ever wrote.

War, not love, drives the pulsing heartbeat of Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony – the most personal and direct of the composer’s many attempts ‘to express the terrible tragedy of war’.

2 hours, 29 minutes

Last on

Tue 10 Sep 2019 19:00

Music Played

  • Bedrich Smetana

    The Bartered Bride - Overture & Three Dances

    Orchestra: Czech Philharmonic. Conductor: Semyon Bychkov.
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

    Eugene Onegin - Letter Scene

    Performer: Elena Stikhina. Orchestra: Czech Philharmonic.
  • Dmitry Shostakovich

    Symphony No 8 in C minor

    Orchestra: Czech Philharmonic. Conductor: Semyon Bychkov.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach

    Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041

    Performer: Nigel Kennedy. Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker.
    • Kennedy plays Bach with the Berlin Philharmonic.
    • EMI.
    • 7.

Broadcast

  • Tue 10 Sep 2019 19:00

Featured in...

The home of classical music and the Proms on the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Every Proms concert is broadcast live on Radio 3 - don't miss a single one.