Proms 2015 Prom 60: Mahler – Symphony No. 1 by Schoenberg, Arnold, Cowell, H., Mahler, De (2015/2015), Director musical Michael Tilson Thomas, Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom

Michael Tilson Thomas conducts Mahler's monumental First Symphony along with Schoenberg's 'Theme and Variations' and Henry Cowell's Piano Concerto, performed by Jeremy Denk. It has been almost a decade since the San Francisco Symphony visited the Proms. The orchestra is joined by its Music Director of more than 20 years, Michael Tilson Thomas, and by American pianist Jeremy Denk in the latter’s second concert of the season. Here Denk tackles an American rarity – Henry Cowell’s extraordinary Piano Concerto, whose primitive textures require the soloist to pound the piano with fists and forearms. It is paired with Mahler’s First Symphony, an ebullient youthful work filled with hints of the mature composer to come, and Schoenberg’s imaginative Theme and Variations, heard in the composer’s own orchestral arrangement.