BBC Proms: Little, BBCSO, Davis/ Late Night Grainger

Submitted by David Nice on Wed, 03/08/2011 - 06:30
Judith Burrows. All Proms images below by Chris Christodoulou

They came in their thousands again last night, most – I’m guessing – for “the Elgar”. Lacking faith that Tasmin Little could fill the enormous soul of that most elusive of violin concertos – a prejudice, alas, fulfilled - I put my money on the polytonal jungle Percy Grainger grows from pastoral seeds at the heart of his wacky In a Nutshell Suite. Yet unforgettably though Sir Andrew Davis swept it along, even Grainger was overshadowed by the lone, late-night transcendentalism of folk singer June Tabor.