Simon Rattle conducts two ensembles with which he is particularly associated - the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
To begin, the latter make their Proms debut in a performance of Schoenberg's early and ebullient Chamber Symphony No 1. Then the Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, making his first television appearance at the Proms, joins the CBSO for Mozart's Concerto No 24, K491. After the interval Rattle conducts the orchestra in Stravinsky's ballet Pulcinella, a witty pastiche based mainly on themes by the 18th-century Neapolitan composer Pergolesi.