Your guide to next week’s Proms, from Carol Ann Duffy’s poems to Mahler’s First by heart

From the Alps to the Auvergne (Monday 7pm)

A prom tailor-made for the Royal Albert Hall: Edward Gardner conducts the London Philharmonic Orchestra in Richard Strauss’s gargantuan An Alpine Symphony: sunrise, ascent, summit, glacier, storm, sunset, the lot, performed by a vast orchestra complete with hecklephone, Wagner tubas, cowbells, wind and thunder machines. Plus, a UK premiere by Kristine Tjøgersen, and the soprano Louise Alder sings a selection of Canteloube’s Songs of the Auvergne.

Sibelius’s Second (Tuesday 7pm)

Sakari Oramo conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Sibelius’s atmospheric Symphony No 2. Guy Johnston is soloist in Britten’s Cello Symphony, and the orchestra will perform the UK premiere of the Festen Suite by Mark-Anthony Turnage from his hit opera based on Thomas Vinterberg’s film.

Elgar’s First (Wednesday 7pm)

Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the BBC Scottish Orchestra in Elgar’s Symphony No 1, a big-boned work the composer took a decade to complete but which became an enduring favourite. Soprano Claire Booth will give the world premiere of The World’s Wife, poems of Carol Ann Duffy set by Brett Dean. Judith Weir’s short and beautiful Moon and Star, to texts of Emily Dickinson, was a Proms commission in 1995 and makes a welcome return.

Mahler’s First by Heart (Saturday 7pm, Sunday morning 11am)

Sure to be one of the high points of the season, and with two performances, the Aurora Orchestra conducted by Nicholas Collon, play Mahler’s Symphony No 1 from memory, with mezzo-soprano Natalie Lewis a soloist. The story of this grand and eclectic work, 15 years in the making – complete with klezmer, folk music, funeral march and song – will be explored in the first half of the concert.

All relayed live on BBC Radio 3 or listen on BBC Sounds. Tickets available here.

Photograph by Chris Christodoulou