Welcome back! Here's your daily check-in on what's happening at the 2025 BBC Proms. And today (Tuesday 22 July), we've got a real treat in store: one of classical music's most dramatic, dark-hued, sinister and surreal masterpieces.
What's on at the Proms today?
Today's Proms concert features a performance of two iconic 19th-century works. We begin with Richard Strauss's Death and Transfiguration. This sweeping tone poem explores the final moments of an artist’s life. With vivid orchestration and emotional depth, it moves from anguish and struggle to serene acceptance and transcendence. A powerful meditation on mortality, Death and Transfiguration captures both the fear of dying and the ecstatic vision of what might lie beyond.
Next up is a world premiere. ZEBRA (or, 2-3-74: The Divine Invasion of Philip K. Dick) is a brand new work by English composer Mark Simpson. This 20-minute work is inspired by a strange experience undergone by the American science fiction author Philip K. Dick who, between the months of February and March 1974, experienced an overwhelming mystical revelation that came to dominate his thinking until his death.
The climax of tonight's Prom is a performance of Hector Berlioz's macabre, hallucinatory, revolutionary Symphonie fantastique.
A fever dream set to music, the Symphonie fantastique is a landmark in 19th-century orchestral storytelling and an enduring masterpiece of Romantic imagination. Composed in 1830, it shattered conventions with its bold orchestration, radical narrative arc, and emotional extremity. The symphony follows a tormented artist obsessed with an unattainable woman, spiralling into hallucinations, opium-fuelled nightmares, and surreal visions of his own execution and a demonic witches’ sabbath (have a listen to this extraordinary moment, below).
Berlioz deploys the idée fixe—his obsessive melodic motif—to mirror the protagonist’s descent, weaving it through each movement in increasingly grotesque transformations. From the wistful pastoral of the “Scène aux champs” to the ghastly grandeur of the finale, it’s a visceral, visionary ride. Symphonie Fantastique is more than music—it’s theatre for the ears.
Who is performing at the Proms today?
Tonight's Proms performers are the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Anja Bihlmaier. They'll be joined by guitarist Sean Shibe for Mark Simpson's ZEBRA.
What time is tonight's Prom?
Tonight's Prom kicks off at 7.30pm at the Royal Albert Hall. Tickets range from £11 to £56.
