Royal Albert Hall
Proms 29 / 30, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Dausgaard review - Bach Brandenburgs and beyondTuesday, 07 August 2018
A complex Swedish product to unpack, this one. Someone in the BBC must have worked out that it could do with a detailed instruction manual to help people with the task: the programme booklet duly ran to a full 50 pages.There were two sets of... Read more... |
Prom 28, National Youth Orchestra, Benjamin review - micro-music from a mega-bandMonday, 06 August 2018
Anyone who came to the National Youth Orchestra’s annual Prom in the hope of hearing some roof-raising feelgood blockbuster might have slunk out disappointed into the tropical night of Kensington. What an ambitious, high-concept menu Sir George... Read more... |
Proms 25 / 26 review - Russian masters, noodling guitar, late-night perfectionFriday, 03 August 2018
Sometimes the more modestly scaled Proms work best in the Albert Hall. Not that there was anything but vast ambition and electrifying communication from soprano Anna Prohaska and the 17-piece Il Giardino Armonico under Giovanni Antonini, making that... Read more... |
Prom 21, BBC Scottish SO, Volkov review - horncalls and mountainscapesTuesday, 31 July 2018
This concert was inspired by the huge scale of the Albert Hall. The three works all evoke spacious vistas, through their expansive textures, echo effects and horn calls. Mozart, Haas and Strauss made for a diverse programme though, the three works... Read more... |
Prom 19, Ten Pieces review – creative format engages young audiencesMonday, 30 July 2018
Children’s concerts are a tricky business, but the BBC has hit on a good formula with its Ten Pieces project, now in its fifth year. Ten works are chosen for their diversity and accessibility, and these become the basis for education projects... Read more... |
Prom 17, Murray, BBC NOW, Brabbyns review – pastoral vistas, with dark shadowsSaturday, 28 July 2018
Two of the major themes in this year’s Proms season are the hundredth anniversaries of the death of Hubert Parry and the end of the First World War. This programme brought those two ideas together, with two works by Parry himself, along with pieces... Read more... |
Prom 16, Elder, Hallé – reason yoked to magic on one enchanted eveningFriday, 27 July 2018
Beguiling echoes, patterns and symmetries accompanied the Hallé on this Proms journey through the enchanted forests of orchestral sound. Those mellow but irresistible horns that began the evening with the ethereal chug of the pilgrim’s hymn from the... Read more... |
Prom 15, Lewis, BBC Philharmonic, Gernon - a masterful Emperor took the musical laurelsThursday, 26 July 2018
There’s a particular quality to light seen from shadow. Think of the surface of the water glimpsed, hazy and haloed, as you swim upwards after a deep dive, or the smudged edges of city lights seen from a night flight. This concert by Ben Gernon and... Read more... |
Prom 12, Weilerstein, BBCSO, Canellakis review - energetic 20th century classicsTuesday, 24 July 2018
Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto combines the composer’s usual angst and nerviness with a sardonic humour, right from the opening bars, where the cello and orchestra seem to be playing in contradictory keys. At last night’s Prom, cellist Alisa... Read more... |
Proms at...Roundhouse / Proms 9 & 11 review - rituals from Messiaen to MahlerMonday, 23 July 2018
Once the Proms season is under way, you soon regret dissing the prospectus. Connections become apparent, long-term programming a merit, especially this weekend just gone, which took us from elegies and meditations on two world wars heavenwards at... Read more... |
Prom 5, Pelléas et Mélisande, Glyndebourne review - for the ears, not the eyesWednesday, 18 July 2018
What a fabulous score Pelléas et Mélisande is, and what a joy to be able to hear it in a concert performance without the distraction of some over-sophisticated director’s self-communings. Well, if only. What last night’s Prom in fact served up was a... Read more... |
Prom 4, Simpson, BBCPO, Mena review - terrific Lindberg, brooding ShostakovichTuesday, 17 July 2018
The fourth Prom of this season featured only two contrasting pieces, pitching the unabashed joyfulness and good humour of Lindberg’s Clarinet Concerto against the angst and defiance of Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony. It was the former that left... Read more... |
