Welcome to the July 2025 issue of BBC Music Magazine!
This month, we're all about the 2025 BBC Proms. And let's say it off the bat: there’s something of the night about this year’s Proms. From Claudia Winkleman’s ‘The Traitors’, celebrating scheming and treachery in classical music, to Anna Lapwood’s all-night ‘From Dark Till Dawn’, there’s a mischievously macabre vein running throughout the eight-week programme.
But if, thematically, the world’s greatest festival of music is treading a dark path, there’s still plenty of sunny, passionate and uplifting music to suit all tastes, as revealed in our full Proms Listings on page 24. Plus, if you’ve ever wondered what it takes to perfectly synchronise camera and sound during the dazzlingly complicated Proms televised broadcasts, on page 32 Andrew Green meets the producers and technicians on hand to catch that crucial flute solo or cymbal crash.
Elsewhere in the issue we look at some incredible social applications for music – from the professional singers joining with prison inmates to put on brilliant stage productions (p54) to musicians performing in hospitals to supplement medical treatments for anxiety and chronic pain (p48). And for those with strong nerves, Jeremy Pound investigates the history of castrati singers on page 36 – and asks, was the distinct tone and range of these 17th- and 18th-century celebrities really worth the chop?
Joe Matera explores why rock bands and symphony orchestras make surprisingly successful collaborators, while for this month's travel feature our editor Charlotte Smith heads to Vancouver. No, not that one - we're talking Vancouver, Wahsington State, USA here. Host of a vibrant Arts and Music Festival every summer, Vancouver, WA is starting to make its mark, much in the vein of its neighbour across the Columbia River, Portland.
For Composer of the Month, we salute the heroism of Henriëtte Bosmans. Amid the terrors of Nazi oppression, the Dutch-Jewish composer showed admirable fearlessness and passion, says Rebecca Franks. Our Building a Library choice is Busoni’s prodigious Piano Concerto. So fiendishly difficult that for many years even the best pianists avoided it, the Italian’s five-movement masterpiece is admired by Claire Jackson. And we hear from the great Ludovico Einaudi on the music that shaped him.
This month's CD features a luminous performance of Vaughan Williams's much-loved The Lark Ascending, as well as a stirring rendition of Mozart's timeless Requiem. Performers include violinist Laura Samuel, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Singers. Click here or on the image to see the track details for this month's cover CD.
