Henry Wood: The man who made The Proms

Over the next eight weeks, the Royal Albert Hall will echo to the sound of music during the BBC Proms (July 19–September 14).

This unashamed celebration of the chiefly classical repertoire fulfils Henry Wood’s dreams of expanding the British public’s appreciation and combating the German opinion that Britain was Das Land ohne Musik (‘the land without music’). At the first Prom, on August 10, 1895, Wood conducted an overture by Wagner, a composer considered beyond the capabilities of a Briton.

Three things you never knew about the Proms

• The name comes from ‘promenade concerts’, originally performances held in parks with listeners walking past, an arrangement that exposed more people to classical music

• Co-founder Robert Newman, manager of the Queen’s Hall, where the Proms were held before it was destroyed in the Blitz, stated he wished ‘to train the public in easy stages’, starting with ‘popular’ music and ‘gradually raising the standard until I have created a public for classical and modern music’

• Wood’s famous Fantasia on British Sea Songs was composed in 1905 to celebrate 100 years since the Battle of Trafalgar

Wood, it is true, was exceptional. Born to musical parents in 1869, he could play the organ by the age of 10; at 14, he did so at the ‘Musicians’ Church’, St Sepulchre-without-Newgate — his ashes were interred there after his death in 1944 — and he joined the Royal Academy of Music at 16. He switched from teaching singing to conducting and wielded the baton on rostrums from London to New York via countless amateur groups and the academy’s student orchestra.

Wood introduced many European composers to British ears, including Sibelius, Debussy and Schoenberg, conducted the premières of hundreds of new pieces and was the first to open his orchestra to women, in 1913.

Indefatigable and generous, he had a sense of humour: following criticism of his orchestrations, he presented a transcription of a Bach piece as being by ‘Paul Klenovsky’; it won wide acclaim. The Russian pseudonym resulted from his interest in the country of his first wife, singer Princess Olga Urusova, who died in 1909. Today, his bust watches over the Royal Albert Hall and his books, arrangements and sheer passion still inspire musicians.

See the full 2024 BBC Proms programme and book tickets 

The BBC Proms are the most ambitious, eclectic and successful classical music festival in the world — and we should celebrate them

The Proms are a great British institution and a remarkable success story, says Country Life's cultural commentator Athena.

In Focus: What happens behind the scenes at the Proms

Floods, nerves and piano tuning — Henrietta Bredin goes backstage at the world’s biggest music festival, an epic feat of