Yeol Eum Son plays Gershwin’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra — plus the UK premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s Concerto for Orchestra.
Programme
Wynton Marsalis Concerto for Orchestra (BBC co-commission: UK premiere)
Gershwin Piano Concerto in F major
Barber Symphony No. 1 in One Movement
Yeol Eum Son (piano)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: James Gaffigan
Thursday 13 August 2026 · 7pm–c9.15pm
Royal Albert Hall
Listen on BBC Radio 3 / BBC Sounds
Preview
Out of all this year’s Proms, Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F major is the most problematic. The sound is immediate. We’re all made to feel included. The inattentive will finish the work feeling satisfied simply because they have been — which is, depending on your view, either Gershwin’s greatest achievement or the source of a nagging unease. There is something tiresomely overblown about the whole enterprise: a string of likeable ideas treated in a way that makes cinematic sense, consistently inoffensive, delightful in the moment, but amounting — despite the transitions working adequately — to less than the sum of its parts. We’ve committed to a journey and remained resolutely in the field, oohing and aahing at the show pony doing his tricks, without noticing the sun has already set.
This uncomfortable view isn’t common or universally assumed — a product perhaps of a dissatisfied imagination that spent time with Previn and later a much more animated Jablonski in readiness. It’s functional. It does the job. But the concerto consistently leaves me feeling like I’ve gorged on a bottle of Coop dry white wine in the corner of the kitchen whilst someone else devours the latest releases on their YouTube subscription.
Gershwin came relatively late to music and didn’t follow the European path to credibility. His mastery of melodic invention and overt characterisation was always going to make him a crowd pleaser — but there was a pay-off. He sought formal study from both Ravel and Nadia Boulanger, both of whom turned him down. When an émigré Russian composer asked Gershwin for advice, Rachmaninov reportedly enquired first how much George was already earning. The figure confirmed something Rachmaninov had long suspected — a reality that became the foundation of composition teaching in conservatoires for eighty years to follow: you either commit to art or to money. Some say that choice remains.
Still. It’s got a lot of good tunes. And there are plenty paid good money for that who can’t summon them.
Review
This review will be published following the concert.
Gallery
Photography will be added once available.
