Aaron Copland's final symphony was written between 1944 and 1946. It is so obviously music by Copland, with much of the style of his wonderful ballet music (Rodeo, Appalachian Spring etc.), and incorporating the Fanfare for the Common Man in the final movement. It can justifiably be said to be the point at which the American symphony departed the constraints of it's European stylistic forebears. Suited to a large orchestra, it is perfect music for the talented youngsters of the NYO. Before the interval we had Hindemith's reworkings of themes by Weber, and the always moving Four Last Songs of Richard Strauss. performed by South African soprano Masanae Cecilia Rangwanasha.

The first of Walton's two symphonies took him ages to write, so much so that the first performance by the LSO under Hamilton Harty in 1934 only included the first three movements due to his writers block. It was finally finished and fully premiered at the end of 1935. Well received from the beginning, with critical suggestions that Walton was very inspired by the symphonies of Sibelius, and that the work was the greatest English symphony since Elgar. I like it very much - powerful stuff, with a very rousing final movement. The wonderful Sinfonia of London and John Wilson are now a regular Proms visitor, and they gave a super performance of Rachmaninov's best loved work, the 2nd Piano Concerto, with Alim Beisembayev standing in for an indisposed Benjamin Grosvenor. His encore was a piano transcription of part of Stravinsky's Firebird suite. Lili Boulanger's tone poem, D'un matin de printemps, composed just before her early death at the age of 24 in 1918 was the curtain raiser.