Prom 51: London Symphony Orchestra, Bostridge, Harding, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
How better to remember the great Sir Colin Davis than with a life-affirming blast of Tippett brass? Fanfare No.5 from The Mask of Time (arr. Meirion Bowen), xylophone-driven and sounding like it might morph at any moment…
Prom 35: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra & Choruses, Jansons, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
Mariss Jansons by no means gave us the whole story of Mahler’s Second Symphony “Resurrection” at his second Prom with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Like Berlioz’ Symphonie fantastique from the night before it was a work…
Prom 33: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Uchida, Jansons, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
Precious few musicians can instill such a sense of intimacy into their playing as to have us believing that the Royal Albert Hall is Wigmore Hall and that their performance is for an audience of one and…
Prom 21: BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Sondergard, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
The “Turning Point” in Colin Matthews’ so named orchestral piece is a change of attitude, a sudden seriousness of purpose, a great effort of will to stop moving and take stock of where it – whatever it…
Prom 20: Wagner “Götterdämmerung”, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
And so Wotan’s ravens flew home and at the twilight’s last gleaming the immortals were consumed by fire and water. All was finally and irrevocably redeemed by the power of love and the most beautiful of all…
Prom 15: Wagner “Die Walküre”, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
An evening of high drama: a very public altercation between conductor and concert master, a Wagnerian memory lapse from the leading lady, but one of the most thrilling accounts of Die Walküre you will ever hope to…
Prom 14: Wagner “Das Rheingold”, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
Senses we didn’t even know we had come alive with the sound of that E-flat sunk so deep in string basses that it can be felt as well as heard. But the frisson we experience as this…
Prom 8, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Adès, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
Death becomes him. Enter Thomas Adès, composer, conductor, and now grim reaper. The much-anticipated World Premiere of his Totentanz rolled into the Proms like a black juggernaut, an invitation to the dance that none could resist sitting…
Prom 4, Les Siècles, Roth, Royal Albert Hall (Review)
It could catch on again – the conductor with an ornate staff whacking out the tempo on the podium. At the court of Louis XIV, Jean-Baptiste Lully would have been thus equipped, conductor turning dancing master with…
Prom 1, BBC Symphony Orchestra & Choruses, Oramo (Review)
The 119th season of BBC Proms opened not with a bang but with barely a murmur. A thrumming, like the beating of tiny insect wings, like the hum of summer, looked towards not just the season ahead…