Classical Reviews

Prom 26: Serkin, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Knussen

David Nice Friday, 02 August 2013

You wait years for a live performance to test whether Tippett’s Second Symphony is a masterpiece, and then two come along within six months. Both are due to the missionary zeal of the BBC Symphony Orchestra management, determined to give an overshadowed English composer a voice in Britten centenary year. But while Martyn Brabbins convinced me totally of the Second’s dynamic journey back in April at the Barbican, Oliver Knussen caught its rarefied sounds but not always its progressive sense...

Prom 24: British Light Music

alexandra Coghlan Thursday, 01 August 2013

Reviewing last night’s Prom of British Light Music feels a bit like getting all AA Gill on your granny’s Victoria sponge. The collage of musical morsels from Bantock, Arnold, Coates and Elgar is music made with love, for pleasure, by composers who rated enjoyment over admiration. It’s music that smothers critical appraisal gently but firmly in its tweed-clad bosom, killing you with musical kindness.

Prom 21: Hope, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Søndergård

Edward Seckerson Tuesday, 30 July 2013

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 is - is going. That Matthews did actually stop mid-composition because, precisely as the piece tells us, he wasn’t sure he was enjoying the ride anymore is one of those extra-musical bits of information that perhaps holds the key to understanding the motivation behind it.

Prom 20: Götterdämmerung, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim

Edward Seckerson Monday, 29 July 2013

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 the leitmotifs in Wagner’s Ring rolled out across the Albert Hall like a benediction. It was a defining moment in Proms history, no doubt, and was greeted with a few moments of perfect - and I mean perfect - silence.

Prom 19: Tristan und Isolde, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bychkov

Sebastian Scotney Sunday, 28 July 2013

Such has been the justifiable flow of superlatives this week about the Berlin Staatskapelle's Ring conducted by Barenboim, the centrepiece of the BBC Proms' Wagner bicentenary celebration, it would have been easy to forget that the 2013 Proms season contains not just those four, but seven complete Wagner operas.

Comment

Prom 18: Siegfried, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim

Ismene Brown Saturday, 27 July 2013

The transformative power of the Royal Albert Hall at Proms-time never ceases to amaze me.

Prom 17: Antonio Márquez Company, BBC Philharmonic, Mena

Jasper Rees Friday, 26 July 2013

JThis year’s Proms have been accompanied by an unusual choral drone, a monotony of voices whinging about the prodigious heat at the Albert Hall. For one night only no one was complaining as the temperature gauge went up to something like 111. You’ve heard of the Hollywood Prom and Comedy Prom, the Gospel Prom and the Dalek Prom.

Comment

Notes from the Inside with James Rhodes, Channel 4

graham Rickson Thursday, 25 July 2013

Most of us could compile soundtracks to our lives. We’d probably save our favourite songs and pieces for the worst bits. Pianist James Rhodes was sectioned in his twenties and maintains that a visitor who smuggled in an iPod stuffed with classical music helped to save his life. He’s refreshingly candid though, admitting slyly that “listening to a piece of Bach isn’t going to fix everything".

Comment

Prom 15: Die Walküre, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim

David Nice Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Things may be falling apart, a storm now rages but new broods of humans and demigoddesses have been fathered by chief god Wotan, who has undergone a Doctor Who like transformation from Iain Paterson into Bryn Terfel.

Prom 14: Das Rheingold, Staatskapelle Berlin, Barenboim

David Nice Tuesday, 23 July 2013

Swimming around in the Rhine is what most of us wanted to be doing on the hottest day of the year. A cooling, riverbed low E flat from Daniel Barenboim’s Berlin double basses, and then the staggered horn entries announced we were going to be in the finest sonic hands for two and a half hours – or nearly 15, if the colossal Proms Ring is to be accounted in its full, four-night glory.

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