Ninety concerts over eight weeks, thousands of performers and an audience of millions ? the Proms begin next Friday. Our critics pick their highlights
'Mahler with Dudamel and Nigel Kennedy's unaccompanied Bach'
For real Proms atmosphere it's going to be hard to beat Mahler's Resurrection Symphony on 5 August. Under Gustavo Dudamel, the Sim�n Bol�var Symphony Orchestra (now so many of its members are twentysomethings, it has dropped the "Youth") lit up this hall at their 2007 Proms debut. This time they perform alongside the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, hoping to prove to them what we in the UK should already know ? that our youth ensembles inspire too.
Several late-night concerts have caught my eye ? the Belcea Quartet and Valentin Erben playing Schubert, the Tallis Scholars singing Victoria, the mighty Budapest Festival Orchestra turning itself into a human jukebox ? but for me what's unmissable is Nigel Kennedy playing unaccompanied Bach on 6 August. This music is every violinist's ultimate challenge: even lairy Nigel wouldn't dare approach it with less than absolute focus and respect, and a focused, respectful Nigel Kennedy is a very exciting musical prospect indeed.
'Havergal Brian's Gothic symphony will be unmissable'
Havergal Brian's first symphony, the Gothic, is 84 years old, has only ever been played complete five times, and has not been heard in London for 30 years. It is also often described as the most gargantuan symphony ever written, a musical evocation of the medieval cathedral. So this first ever Proms performance (on 17 July) ? only the third ever Proms performance of any of Brian's 32 symphonies ? promises to be one of those "I was there" moments. I fear time may hang heavy after an hour or so ? but it's an unmissable event.
Unlike Brian, Brahms is a Proms staple ? notching 1,359 performances of his music in 116 Proms seasons against Brian's eight. But the 2011 season does Brahms proud, with distinguished lineups performing all his major works. Bernard Haitink's back-to-back concerts, with Emmanuel Ax playing the piano concertos (19/20 August), stand out, as does the double concerto, played by the Capu�on brothers (19 July). But the curiosity has to be Dejan Lazic's piano arrangement of the violin concerto, billed as "Piano Concerto No 3" (11 August). Another "I was there" event.
'Recognition at last for British composer Frank Bridge'
Works by Harrison Birtwistle are rightly a regular feature of Proms seasons now, but two included this year are the British premieres of his most recent large-scale works. Angel Fighter was first performed last year by musikFabrik, who bring it to London (Cadogan Hall, 20 August). It's effectively a cantata telling the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with the Angel, with tenor and countertenor soloists and a chorus. Birtwistle's Violin Concerto is one of his few works with a neutral, purely generic title; it was composed for Christian Tetzlaff, who plays it in the BBC Symphony's concert on 7 September.
Alongside the premiere of the Violin Concerto, David Robertson conducts a rarely heard work by Frank Bridge, his early symphonic poem, Isabella. Though there's no obvious anniversary being celebrated, it's one of no less than five works by Bridge in the season ? including his exhilarating orchestral rhapsody Enter Spring, from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (9 August) and the mysterious late overture Rebus in the BBC Philharmonic's concert with Vassily Sinaisky (11 August). Recognition at last for one of the most intriguing and forward-looking British composers of the first half of the 20th century.
'Liszt's symphonies, full of drama and literary symbolism'
If, like me, you're a Liszt fan, then this year's Proms offer nothing better than the all-too rare opportunity to hear his two symphonies in close proximity. Typically iconoclastic, they have names rather than numbers, and each constitutes an extreme reappraisal of symphonic form and harmonic potential in an attempt to capture the essence of the literary works that inspired them. The Faust Symphony of 1854 probes the psychology and metaphysics of Goethe's great drama. The Dante Symphony, completed two years later, takes The Divine Comedy as the starting point for an examination of the relationships between spirituality, sexuality and salvation, which can also be interpreted as Liszt's anguish at ecclesiastical opposition to his relationship with Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein.
Vladimir Jurowski and the London Philharmonic tackleFaust on 26 July. Six days later, Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic return to the Dante, a work they made their own in Manchester earlier this year.
'Judith Weir's new work should pack a bigger punch than Brahms'
It's easy to overlook how much new music the festival has introduced over the last 111 years. The very first piece to be performed in this year's festival, in fact, will be Judith Weir's brand new Stars, Night, Music and Light which, despite its modest four-minute duration, will hopefully pack a bigger punch than the Brahms Academic Festival Overture which follows it. Weir's piece is one of 11 Proms-specific commissions, and the first of some 26 premieres this season.
Perhaps surprisingly, many new pieces this year are concertos, including two double concertos. Thomas Larcher's, for violin and cello, will sit interestingly beside his Austrian compatriot Anton Bruckner's great fifth symphony (18 August), while the other, Simon Holt's Greek myth-inspired Centauromachy (for clarinet and flugelhorn, 9 August), will compensate those, like me, who missed its Cardiff premiere last year. Kevin Volans's new piano concerto on 22 August will pay intriguing homage to Liszt, while Emmanuel Pahud will give the London, and UK, respectively, premieres of Marc-Andr� Dalbavie's and Eliot Carter's Flute Concertos. I'm particularly looking forward to Cold Heat (27 August), by the Swedish composer Anders Hillborg, whose swirling sound-world should use the Albert Hall's challenging acoustic to its advantage, as will the late-night celebration of Steve Reich's 75th birthday by the Ensemble Modern.
'Rossini's opera William Tell is rarely performed ? it's impossible to cast'
Two major but unusual Romantic operas make an appearance in concert form at this year's Proms: Rossini's William Tell (16 July) and Weber's Der Freisch�tz (9 September). Rossini's final and most ambitious opera is rarely performed ? for one thing, the high-lying tenor role of Arnold is almost impossible to cast; here, as on Antonio Pappano's recent recording, it is taken by American John Osborn. Anyone knowing just the famous overture will be surprised by the range and expansiveness of Rossini's writing throughout this high-minded hymn to freedom.
A few years earlier, Carl Maria von Weber did the same thing for German opera with Der Freisch�tz, whose untranslatable title (something like "The Marksman") hides the compelling story of a huntsman, insecure about his prowess in a shooting competition, who is seduced by demonic powers to allow them to give him some help. The famous Wolf's Glen scene when the magic bullets are cast in the nocturnal forest still generates a sinister frisson. John Eliot Gardiner's performance increases the rarity value by performing French Weber-fan Hector Berlioz's 1841 version of the piece specially adapted for Paris.
Full details at bbc.co.uk/proms. Go to guardian.co.uk/music/proms-2011 for reviews of every prom, blogs, features, picture galleries and reader reviews.
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