Royal Albert Hall
Prom 39: Johnston, BBCSO, OramoMonday, 15 August 2016
The mid-way point of the BBC Proms has just passed. Attention during the eight-week season will inevitably tend to gravitate towards the novelties, “events” and one-offs, but one pre-condition for the summer to be going well is that the Proms'... Read more... |
Proms at...Cadogan Hall: Hardenberger, Gruber, ASMFTuesday, 09 August 2016
Superior light music with a sting, done at the highest level: what could be better for a summer lunchtime in the light and airy Cadogan Hall? Our curator was that most collegial of top soloists, trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger. He'd invited colleagues... Read more... |
Prom 29: NYO, Gardner/Prom 30: Kolesnikov, NYOS, VolkovMonday, 08 August 2016
If the BBC were to plan a Proms season exclusively devoted to youth orchestras and ensembles, many of us would be delighted. Standards are now at professional level right across the board. 20 years ago, the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland... Read more... |
Prom 27: Kuusisto, BBCSSO, DausgaardSaturday, 06 August 2016
Concert halls, as Gregg Wallace might observe if he ever went to one, don’t come much bigger than the Royal Albert Hall, nor violin concertos than the Tchaikovsky. Faced with this awesome combination, the temptation for a soloist is to play up to... Read more... |
Prom 25: Gerhardt, Komlósi, Relyea, RPO, DutoitThursday, 04 August 2016
"Let the song speak, I pray," exhorts the Bard in the Prologue to Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, "Listen in silence." This was a night for leaning in and listening closely, despite the large forces arrayed on stage for Dvořák’s Cello Concerto and Bartók’s... Read more... |
Prom 21: Leleux, Aurora Orchestra, CollonMonday, 01 August 2016
The Aurora Orchestra’s gimmick at Prom 21 was the same as in the last two seasons: playing a major classical symphony from memory. This was touted as an “astonishing feat” by the concert’s on-stage presenter Tom Service but, although unusual, is it... Read more... |
Prom 20: Roméo et Juliette, Monteverdi Choir, NYCoS, ORR, GardinerSunday, 31 July 2016
Like Prokofiev in his full-length ballet a century later, Berlioz seems to have been inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet to bring forth his most compendious score. John Eliot Gardiner, who knows and loves every bar of light and shade in this... Read more... |
Prom 19: David Bowie PromSaturday, 30 July 2016
“I’m here, I’m here, I’m here,” sang John Cale in the droning voice of Major Tom. Whether the spirit of David Bowie was indeed hovering over the Albert Hall for this impromptu memorial late-night Prom is not easily answered. The shape-shifting Bowie... Read more... |
Prom 18: Mahler's Third Symphony, LSO, HaitinkSaturday, 30 July 2016
Few 87-year-olds would have the stamina to conduct over 100 minutes of Mahler. Bernard Haitink, though, has always kept a steady, unruffled hand on the interpretative tiller, and if his way with the longest of all the symphonies, the Third, hasn't... Read more... |
Prom 13: London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, JurowskiMonday, 25 July 2016
The last time I heard Beethoven's setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy in the finale of his Ninth Symphony, it was as European anthem at the end of this May's Europe Day Concert, and everybody gladly stood. That hopeful occasion was distinguished by... Read more... |
Prom 11: Wilson, Creswell, BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, WigglesworthSunday, 24 July 2016
It's not often you think you detect a future Brünnhilde in a soprano performing a great Verdi role, but that was the case when American Tamara Wilson made her UK debut last autumn as a stunning Leonora in the ENO production of Verdi's The Force of... Read more... |
Prom 9: Feola, Le Cercle de l'Harmonie, RhorerSaturday, 23 July 2016
It's never easy readjusting to the weird and sometimes wonderful acoustics of Albert's colosseum at Proms time, least of all when the first thing you hear there comes from a period-instrument band. Tuning in to Jérémie Rhorer's Le Cercle de l'... Read more... |
