This year the Proms are to stage 21 world premières and 11 European, UK or London premières. It is good to see the corporation continuing its mission to encourage new music, though some think they overdo it. I heard one of our leading keyboard players say that when he was asked to première a piece recently, he replied that he would rather dernière it. Clearly the BBC takes a more hopeful view.
The most eye-catching new work in the series, leaving Whitacre out of it for now, will surely be the Fourth Symphony of our latest musical knight, Sir James MacMillan. MacMillan has described the piece as ‘abstract’ and ‘infused by ritual’, with allusions to the music of his great (arguably greatest) Scottish predecessor, the renaissance composer Robert Carver. Carver was remarkable in his day for writing textures that require very large ensembles, including the 19-part motet O bone Jesu. MacMillan seems to have contented himself with calling on the merely ten-voice Missa Dum sacrum mysterium, whose contours we may hear in some of the string parts.
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