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In 2020, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio 3 is bringing together musical greats, from the past and the present, in one extraordinary Proms season. Radio 3 is broadcasting the best of four decades of unmissable Proms concerts.

Hannah French presents a highlight of the 1994 season.

Haydn’s Symphony No. 96 was written during the composer’s first visit to London and was premiered in Hannover Square, just two miles from where the Royal Albert Hall now stands. The lightest of the 12 symphonies he wrote in the city, its four movements perfectly capture the elegance and wit that brought Haydn such popularity in London society. His virtuosic First Violin Concerto, performed in this concert by the Japanese-born violinist Mayumi Seiler, was written two decades earlier, in the early years of his employment at the Esterházy court.

Sir Neville Marriner and his Academy of St Martin in the Fields conclude with a performance of the Fourth Symphony by Haydn’s frustrated pupil, Beethoven. Despite being written at the same time as his better-known Fifth, the symphony is classical in proportion, its bubbling finale imbued with the spirit of Beethoven’s teacher.
Haydn: Symphony No. 96 in D major, ‘Miracle’
Haydn: Violin Concerto No. 1 in C major
Beethoven: ‘Ah! pérfido’
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat major

Adrianne Pieczonka (soprano)
Mayumi Seiler (violin)
Academy of St Martin in the Fields
Sir Neville Marriner (conductor)

(From the ´óÏó´«Ã½ Proms 1994, 15 August)