Copland and Stravinsky

Live at the BBC Proms: BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Ryan Bancroft perform with clarinetist Anthony McGill.

Presented by Alexandra Humphreys, live from the Royal Albert Hall, London

Copland: Billy the Kid (suite)
Gabriel Kahane: Clarinet Concerto, ‘If love will not swing wide the gates’ [BBC co-commission: European premiere]

c.7.50pm
Interval: Theatre historian and performer Naomi Paxton discusses the puppet figures popularised by the Commedia dell'arte in the Italian middle ages, which Stravinsky drew upon in his ballet. She also shares her research into a Suffragette version of Punch and Judy.

c.8.10pm
Stravinsky: Petrushka (1947 version)

BBC National Orchestra of Wales
Ryan Bancroft (conductor)
Anthony McGill (clarinet)

Two 20th-century ballets lie at the heart of this colourful concert by Ryan Bancroft and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. Puppets come to life at a bustling Shrovetide Fair in Stravinsky’s Petrushka – a giddy musical collage of folk tunes and modernist invention – while cowboy songs swirl through the score of Copland’s Billy the Kid: a musical portrait of the infamous outlaw. Dedicatee Anthony McGill is the soloist in a new Clarinet Concerto, ‘If love will not swing wide the gates’, by Portland-based composer and songwriter Gabriel Kahane. A collaborator of Sufjan Stevens and Rufus Wainright, Kahane blends classical forms with folk-pop influences in his melodic, anthemic writing.