Proms
Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Boyd, Royal Albert HallFriday, 30 July 2010
The banquet's laid, the host is absent but the guests can still relish the first-class fare in his memory. Sir Charles Mackerras was perhaps looking down happily in the company of Mozart and Dvořák as another oboist-turned-conductor like himself,... Read more... |
Josefowicz, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Knussen, Royal Albert HallThursday, 29 July 2010
"Stockhausen's festive overture from 1977 opens the programme," declared the Proms website cheerily. Come again? Festive? Stockhausen? From my limited but largely enthusiastic knowledge of the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen - much of which is about... Read more... |
Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Järvi, Hahn, Royal Albert HallWednesday, 28 July 2010
If the bust of Sir Henry Wood that watches over the stage of the Royal Albert Hall had come to life, Commendatore-like, during last night’s concert, I can’t help feel that he would have been smiling. Beethoven nights – once a popular Proms fixture... Read more... |
The Man Who Could Upstage Dame Judi At The PromMonday, 26 July 2010
It has just been announced that Dame Judi Dench will be making her Proms debut this Saturday. Sondheim at 80 is the occasion, and she will reprise her rendition of “Send in the Clowns” from the National’s 1985 production of A Little Night Music... Read more... |
Zacharias, BBC Philharmonic, Sinaisky, Royal Albert HallMonday, 26 July 2010
The Proms listings are full of concerts a bit like the one last night that seem to offer up, on paper, little of real burning interest: no big names, no star foreign orchestras, no intriguing rarities, no new works, nothing beyond one hard-working... Read more... |
The BBC's new TV dawn for the PromsFriday, 23 July 2010
For the couch-bound classical music lover, keeping up with the Proms is pretty straightforward. Step one: open bottle of agreeable claret. Step two: turn on Radio 3 and listen, or watch selected Proms on BBC Two or BBC Four. Or, indeed, catch up... Read more... |
Lewis, BBCSO, Bělohlávek; Pires, Royal Albert HallThursday, 22 July 2010
Two pianists, one indisputably great and the other probably destined to become so, lined up last night to show us why the Proms at its best is a true festival, not just a gaggle of summer concerts. First there was the prince of pearly classicism,... Read more... |
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Petrenko, Royal Albert HallTuesday, 20 July 2010
What a thrilling sound the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra can make when it chooses! What a grippingly deep tone, from a lower strings section that sounds like you’ve got the bass on your car stereo turned up daringly high, what clinical... Read more... |
Simon Boccanegra, Royal Albert HallSunday, 18 July 2010
First to crane his head anxiously in Plácido Domingo's direction was the leader of the Royal Opera House orchestra, Peter Manning. Then came an agitated look from conductor Antonio Pappano. Soprano Marina Poplavskaya clutched Domingo's chest as if... Read more... |
Die Meistersinger at the Proms, BBC FourSunday, 18 July 2010
Two birthday parties kept me away from the Albert Hall yesterday (though I'll confess that in the end I treacherously skipped the second and stayed glued to the TV's delayed relay). That, and a slight fear that the concert performance of Wagner's... Read more... |
BBC Proms 2010: theartsdesk recommends...Friday, 16 July 2010
It's that time again. The BBC Proms - in classical music terms, the greatest show on Earth - begin tonight with Mahler's massive Eighth Symphony. From Bryn Terfel in Wagner on the second night of the Proms to Sir John Eliot Gardiner and... Read more... |
Now Newsnight is at it...Tuesday, 06 July 2010The BBC's cultural conscience has been pricked, it would seem, by the World Cup now reaching its endgame in South Africa. Either that or departments don't talk to one another. Singing for Life, Sunday night's documentary on BBC Four about the young... Read more... |
