Music
More than a yard of tickets to the Proms!
Celestial Bach - my highlight so far of this Prom season. Bach’s Mass in B minor sung by The English Concert and choir conducted by Harry Bicket was virtuosic and always subtle, fluid and dynamic. A heavenly pleasure.
The superlatives run out. A Baroque orchestra and small and very proficient choir filling the Royal Albert Hall with heavenly counterpoint that claims the rapt attention of the entire audience, seated and promenading.
Spectacular British choral Prom: a programme of classic twentieth-century British music performed by two large choruses, the London Brass and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Tadaaki Otaka. The stars of this evening were the BBC Symphony Chorus and the BBC National Chorus of Wales; the choral preparation was excellent plus the conducting was sympathetic resulting in excellent choral unison.
Read more: Prom 23: Vaughan Williams, Ireland, Delius & Walton
Precision playing from the BBC Philharmonic under Gianandrea Noseda. My feeling is that this orchestra is producing exceptional performances just now, maybe it’s the conductors, maybe it’s the new premises at the side of a disused canal at Salford Quay, Manchester. Tonight’s Mahler was cinematic in its brilliance of colours and clarity of story-telling.
Big expectations for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the Proms on the night of the opening of the London Olympics. The West–Eastern Divan Orchestra rose to the occasional under its conductor, Daniel Barenboim. Magnificent with a touch of the mystic and idealistic. The slow movement was intense without loosing form and direction with (at last in this cycle) a dialogue between the instruments; the choral last movement was thrilling, both with the sheer quantity of the two hundred singers from the National Youth Choir of Great Britain and the speed of the performance. A memorable evening.
Read more: Prom 18: Beethoven Cycle – Symphony No. 9, 'Choral'
Daniel Barenboim conducted a pair of fine performances of Beethoven’s later symphonies with the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra. He included many Western performing traditions but these relatively youthful performers gave energy to the music in a way that more established orchestras often do not sustain.
