Prom 66: Berlin Philharmonic & Kirill Petrenko (I) by Dukas, Prokofiev, Schmidt, Franz, Alkaen (2018/2018), Musiikinjohto Kirill Petrenko, Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom

The Berlin Philharmonic perform for the first time in London under Chief Conductor Designate Kirill Petrenko. They are joined by pianist Yuja Wang for Prokofiev’s explosive Third Piano Concerto, and the programme also includes music by Dukas and Schmidt. A landmark concert sees the Berlin Philharmonic perform for the first time in London under its new Chief Conductor Designate, Kirill Petrenko. ‘In this work Mahler’s spirit is resurrected,’ said a colleague of Franz Schmidt’s Fourth Symphony, a piece whose Romantic character is charged with the grief of personal loss. Dynamic pianist Yuja Wang is the soloist in Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto, with its explosive closing battle of wills between soloist and orchestra. The concert opens with Dukas’s exotic, Impressionistic ballet score La péri, prefaced by the arresting curtain-raising fanfare the composer later added.