Proms
Prom 43: Skride, BBCSO, GardnerTuesday, 19 August 2014
The Russians were coming - and the prospect of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, even without the added attraction of hearing it in Igor Buketoff’s questionable choral arrangement where the Tsarist hymn is taken at its word and does a Boris Godunov on us... Read more... |
Prom 34: Piemontesi, BBCNOW, SøndergårdTuesday, 12 August 2014
Some things that spread like wildfire, like ebola and wildfire itself, are not good news at all. But performing Nielsen’s symphonies? That’s another matter entirely. In the next concert season, the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Philharmonia both... Read more... |
Prom 33: Schwizgebel, National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, GardnerMonday, 11 August 2014
After the European Union Youth Orchestra hit unsurpassable heights last week, the Proms plateau of excellence remained available to another youth carnival of weird and wonderful 20th century monsters. If the EUYO showed us that Shostakovich’s... Read more... |
Prom 31: Coote, Hallé, ElderSunday, 10 August 2014
The levels of refinement now exhibited by the Hallé, the stylishness and elegance of the playing, define the special relationship that they and Mark Elder have cemented over the last decade and a half. The opening bars of Berlioz’s Le corsaire came... Read more... |
Prom 29: Grosvenor, Goode, BBC Philharmonic, NosedaSaturday, 09 August 2014
“That,” she said, “is what it must be like when you enter heaven.” And I knew just what my wife meant. The organ was in full regalia, revelling in the marshmallow glory of the chorale theme in Saint-Saëns’ Third Symphony, with the orchestra... Read more... |
Prom 28: D'Orazio, Clayton, BBCSO, OramoFriday, 08 August 2014
All kinds of narratives were at play in this Prom from the BBC Symphony Orchestra and its Principal Conductor Sakari Oramo - and perhaps the truly adventurous programmer might have double-deployed Rory Kinnear, dispassionately chronicling Stravinsky... Read more... |
Prom 27: Trusler, BBCNOW, Wigglesworth/Inspire Workshop, Royal Albert HallThursday, 07 August 2014
A full day began and ended with Elgar the European, or rather the citizen of the world. After all, the Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, played with panache by 180 young musicians in a morning meet-up, owes its swagger to the "Cortège de Bacchus"... Read more... |
Prom 26: European Union Youth Orchestra, London Voices, PetrenkoWednesday, 06 August 2014
The symphony – that structural pillar of classical music – found itself under siege last night at the Proms. Both Berio’s Sinfonia and Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony assault and subvert, reshape and reimagine the genre, puncturing the Victorian... Read more... |
Prom 24: BBCSSO, Runnicles/Solemn Vigil of Commemoration, Westminster AbbeyTuesday, 05 August 2014
Despairing in the depths of the Second World War, Richard Strauss turned to Mozart’s string quintets as well as the complete works of Goethe for evidence that German culture still existed. Vaughan Williams might well have done the same for his... Read more... |
Prom 21: Kiss Me, Kate, John Wilson OrchestraSunday, 03 August 2014
“Another Op'nin', Another Show”. The first musical number of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate sets the scene for a group of actors and hoofers to brush up their Shakespeare, cross their fingers and hold on to their hearts, and to hope that not too much... Read more... |
Prom 20: Crabb, BBCSO, BrabbinsSaturday, 02 August 2014
The first half of last night’s Prom was supposed to be linked by the theme of the First World War, but Anthony Marwood’s illness meant that Sally Beamish’s Violin Concerto, based on All Quiet on the Western Front, had to be replaced at late notice... Read more... |
Prom 19: BBC Singers, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, PetrenkoFriday, 01 August 2014
A monstrous celebration prefaced by thunderous organ chords is always going to be more the Albert Hall’s kind of thing than a comic opera viewed through the wrong end of the telescope. So Strauss’s Festival Prelude kicked off a first half of 150th... Read more... |
