Here's just a fraction of the web's treasures at your fingertips, starting with summer's longest and greatest classical-music event, the 120th annual Proms, under the BBC umbrella since 1927, live daily from London's Royal Albert Hall through Sept. 12. Most concerts start at 11 or 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time, but there are many other activities in addition, check the schedule. A few highlights just this week:
• Tuesday - Thomas Søndergård conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, Poulenc’s Organ Concerto (with James O'Donnell), and Mozart’s Symphony No. 41.
• Wednesday - Mark Simpson performs the Clarinet Concerto by Carl Nielsen, in a concert conducted by Sir Andrew Davis, and also including the world premiere of Hugh Wood's Epithalamion, and Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe Suite No. 2.
• Thursday - Leif Ove Andsnes begins his cycle of Beethoven piano concertos with Nos. 1 & 4, playing and conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, including Stravinsky’s ballet Apollon musagète.
• Friday - Part 2 of the Andsnes-Beethoven cycle, with Concerto No. 3, David Hill conducting; the concert includes Stravinsky's Concerto in E-flat Major ("Dumbarton Oaks"), Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden, and Beethoven's Choral Fantasy.
• Saturday - Bryn Terfel sings the title role of a semi-staged Fiddler on the Roof, David Charles Abell conducting.
Further down the road, look for an evening of all five Prokofiev piano concertos as Valery Gergiev conducts the LSO, with soloists Daniil Trifonov, Sergei Babayan, and Alexei Volodin (July 28); Donald Runnicles conducts the world premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Symphony No. 4 and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (Aug. 3); and Kirill Karabits Bournemouth Symphony performs Four Sea Interludes from Britten's Peter Grimes, the Korngold Violin Concerto, with Nicola Benedetti, and Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony (Aug. 13).
All programs, including the opening weekend's "Ten Pieces Proms," remain available on the BBC website for a month, and for the first time, Proms programs can also be heard for 30 days on smartphones and tablets by downloading the free BBC iPlayer Radio app.
Medici.TV is now carrying the Verbier Festival through Aug. 2, and will have free webcasts of the Salzburg Festival, Aug. 9-16. The schedule for carrying live events from China will be announced soon. Registration is required, but it's free, and from personal experience, I can say that there are few pitches for switching to paid subscription.
Salzburg opera productions this summer include Der Rosenkavalier, Dido and Aeneas, Ernani, Fidelio, Il Trovatore, Iphigénie en Tauride, Le Nozze di Figaro, and Wolfgang Rihms' Die Eroberung von Mexico.
Verbier's grand opening concert on Friday remains available as a webcast, with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the festival orchestra in Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Schumann's Symphony No. 3, and Berlioz's Les Nuits d'été, with Joyce DiDonato as soloist (30 minutes into the recording).
Another Merola alum, Brian Hyland, is sensational in the Berlioz Requiem on a Medici webcast, which remains available for the next two weeks. (See Sanctus, which begins one hour into the recording.)