Once again we visited the Proms this year, just one concert that consisted of two visions of India and a portrait of London.
Gustav Holst’s fascination with Sanksrit literature found early expression in the 1903 tone-poem Indra, composed before the first set of his Hymns from the Rig Veda.
David Atherton conducted the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in this and the world première of Nishat Khan’s Sitar Concerto No. 1, with the composer as soloist.
First performed in 1914, Vaughan Williams’s A London Symphony evokes the chimes of Westminster, a chill November in Bloomsbury and the bright lights of the Strand in a city that would soon be scarred by war.

Gustav Holst Indra
Nishat Khan The Gate of the Moon (Sitar Concerto No. 1)  BBC commission: world premiere, Nishat Khan sitar
Ralph Vaughan Williams A London Symphony (Symphony No. 2)


 (Taken form BBC Proms website)