BBC Proms 2026: Alexandra Dariescu with The Hallé and Kahchun Wong

Last night’s Prom at the Royal Albert Hall, beginning earlier to make room for a late show by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and friends, brought a restrained but ultimately rewarding performance. The audience was led on a subtle journey via an intriguing combination of Kahchung Wong’s distinctively light touch with French impressionist blur, lavish Romantic piano and powerful symphonic emotion.

The evening began with Colin Matthews’s orchestration of Ravel’s La Vallée des Cloches (The Valley of the Bells), the fifth in his Miroirs suite for piano. Bar some less than bell-like intonation and ensemble at the start, the overall effect was exquisitely hazy, with tuned percussion ringing from the smoky texture to aptly recreate the midday church bells in Paris.

Following it was Nadia Boulanger’s Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra, whose grand opening theme also recalls reverberant bells. The interpretation starred Romanian pianist Alexandra Dariescu, who sparkled onto the stage and maintained warmth and vim throughout. It felt in moments as though the orchestra was elsewhere, managing to both occasionally overwhelm the piano and fall short of the soloist’s energy. Nonetheless, the under-performed work was a delight to hear – lush, evocative, folk-inflected and unmistakeably French – and any mismatch in the ensemble was instantly forgotten with the arrival of the encore. Dariescu offered a duet with principal cellist Rachel Helleur-Simcock from Boulanger’s Three Pieces for Cello and Piano, which was a spellbinding expression of female vibrancy. 

After the interval, the meat of the show: Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No 2, a famously fervent, expansive piece given an almost delicate rendition. While the swathes of melodic intensity felt at times stilted – even unsatisfying – elsewhere, Wong effected an intricacy rarely enjoyed in the work, particularly in the second movement. Principal clarinet Sergio Castelló López’s Adagio was supremely controlled, lending a liquid purity to the well-loved melody, and the conductor’s sensitive style really came to the fore in the closing section of the movement, which was transcendentally beautiful. The finale, while presenting some issues with balance (lower brass and horns laying down a sometimes intrusive counterpoint to carefully wrought strings), brought the evening to an enjoyably sprightly close.

Alexandra Fletcher
Image: Chris Christodoulou

The BBC Proms 2026 are on from 17^th July until 12^th September 2026 at the Royal Albert Hall. For further information and future events, visit the BBC Proms website here.