Music
More than a yard of tickets to the Proms!
Terrifying Shostakovich for my last 2012 Prom: Andris Nelsons memorably conducting the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich’s ‘Leningrad’ Symphony, completed and first performed in 1941, whilst the desperate siege and battle of Leningrad was still being fought.
“Terrifying” because although there is a large orchestra and at times it plays very loudly, the subtext of this symphony about totalitarianism is as clear and relevant today as in 1941: the apparently innocent tune that mutates in to a monster during the course of the first movement. The victory of the last movement that is crushingly bitter-sweet.
Practically perfect Mozart Clarinet Concerto and Beethoven Egmont overture from Michael Collins, basset clarinet with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in fine form, conducted by Osmo Vänska.
Sensitive Saint-Saëns piano playing by Benjamin Grosvenor was the highlight of tonight’s Delius, Saint-Saëns & Tchaikovsky Prom from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. I’d come to hear Charles Dutoit’s conducting but the twenty year-old pianist stole the show.
Vast is the scope of Richard Strauss’s "Ein Heldenleben", vast in emotional gamut and vast in range of orchestral colour. Tonight’s performance was impressive, there must have been detailed preparation. The climaxes were dramatic, the lyrical passages moving and the contrasts effective. The effect overall was intense.
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.
