The festival opens with a choir of 450 and two great portraits of the sea: Sakari Oramo conducts Vaughan Williams’s A Sea Symphony and Britten’s Four Sea Interludes as well as the world premiere of Julian Anderson’s Harmony. Pianist Stephen Hough plays Paganini variations by Rachmaninov and by featured composer Lutosławski.

In its 50th-anniversary year, Doctor Who returns to the Proms with a spectacular concert featuring Murray Gold’s music for the series, plus pieces by Bach, Bizet and Debussy, and a special performance of one of the most iconic theme tunes in television history. Performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Ben Foster, the Prom includes a host of alien friends and foes plus a very special appearance by Matt Smith.

In its 50th-anniversary year, Doctor Who returns to the Proms with a spectacular concert featuring Murray Gold’s music for the series, plus pieces by Bach, Bizet and Debussy, and a special performance of one of the most iconic theme tunes in television history. Performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Ben Foster, the Prom includes a host of alien friends and foes plus a very special appearance by Matt Smith.

François-Xavier Roth and Les Siècles trace the history of French dance music – on period instruments – from the Court of the Sun King at Versailles to the riotous 1913 Paris premiere of Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring.

Jonathan Nott conducts the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 5, whose Adagietto is a tender tribute to his wife, Alma. The Arditti Quartet joins the orchestra for the UK premiere of Helmut Lachenmann’s vast and atmospheric Tanzsuite mit Deutschlandlied.

Inspired by daybreak on the Kent coast, David Matthews’s A Vision of the Sea opens the BBC Philharmonic’s Prom with Juanjo Mena. Nobuyuki Tsujii is the soloist in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, a passionate upbeat to Nielsen’s life-affirming ‘Inextinguishable’ Symphony.

Thomas Adès conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Christianne Stotijn and Simon Keenlyside in the world premiere of his Totentanz, a work inspired by a mural destroyed in the Second World War bombing of Lübeck. Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem and Lutosławski’s Cello Concerto complete a programme of remembrance and survival.

Sir Antonio Pappano conducts the Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome, in Rachmaninov’s Second Symphony and Mozart’s elegant ‘Haffner’ Symphony. Jan Lisiecki plays Schumann’s intimate Piano Concerto in the first of Pappano’s two Proms.

Sir Antonio Pappano, the Orchestra and Chorus of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome, and soprano Maria Agresta celebrate Verdi’s bicentenary with the Four Sacred Pieces, the original version of the Requiem’s ‘Libera me’, a touching Ave Maria setting and the orchestral version of the great opera composer’s String Quartet.

The newly formed National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America makes its Proms debut under the baton of Valery Gergiev in Sean Shepherd’s Magiya and Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony. Violinist Joshua Bell is the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto.

Juanjo Mena and the BBC Philharmonic present a programme of dance music spanning Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, John McCabe’s Joybox, Ravel’s Boléro and Falla’s Spanish ballet The Three-Cornered Hat.

Semyon Bychkov and the BBC Symphony Orchestra interrupt the Ring cycle to explore Wagner’s intoxicating tragedy Tristan and Isolde, a turning point in the history of Romantic music. Robert Dean Smith and Violeta Urmana are the illicit lovers.

The UK premiere of Colin Matthews’s Turning Point opens the BBC National Orchestra of Wales’s first Prom with Thomas Søndergård. Daniel Hope plays Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2, the quicksilver antipode to Shostakovich’s monumental Symphony No. 11, ‘The Year 1905’.

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra returns to the BBC Proms with conductor Daniel Harding. Paul Lewis is the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, its play of light and shade echoed in the same composer’s Masonic Funeral Music, Schumann’s Second Symphony and Sibelius’s Seventh.