As the whole world knows, London has been putting its best foot forward this summer, and has done it very impressively. From the success of the Olympics to the best-contested Test Match I’ve ever been to (the final result, notwithstanding) it has been a pleasure to be part of the scene. But of all the glamorous events on offer the ones that have probably received the least publicity — because they happen every year — are those that unfold nightly in the Albert Hall. There, without fail, unbelievable numbers of people go to hear all kinds of classical music, some as challenging as anything in the canon. It is really remarkable that when the Proms put on a concert of compositions by John Cage (which they did on 17 August, involving music that veered between total silence and intense dissonance) the turnout can run to the kind of numbers other festivals could only expect if they were fielding the Vienna Philharmonic playing Beethoven.
Roger Wright’s programming has become a daring mix of the obviously catchy — the Wallace & Gromit Prom, the family events — to programmes that give little quarter. Infrequently does he lighten the look of a tough sequence of pieces with a friendly retreat into Mozart (none of his symphonies is being played this season) that was the standard dodge in the past. Wright is confident that an evening out listening to Maxwell Davies, Delius and Shostakovich (23 August) or Goehr, Knussen, Helen Grime and Debussy (25 August) appeals to enough people to pack the place. The argument that everything cultural in our lives is being dumbed down by an invidious trashiness just won’t wash on this evidence — the Proms can give us as much hope for the future as Team GB have just done.
On the back of such popularity the Last Night of this year’s season is to be screened in 3D in selected Odeon cinemas across the country, with the intention that the viewer should be super-present. As the blurb has it: ‘Eight specialist cameras will give audiences in cinemas the best seats in the house and provide an immersive experience. With key camera positions in front of the conductor, and a remote camera within the orchestra that rotates to 180 degrees and can pan and tilt, audiences will feel that they are actually in the orchestra, with a 3D view of every instrument’ — which, frankly, is rather better than a seat in the house, seats being known to restrict one’s access to the stage itself. This initiative is another first for the technology department at the BBC, which has been experimenting with 3D production for a while now. We are told that its remake of Planet Dinosaur 3D: Ultimate Killers — adapted from the multi-award-winning BBC1 series and broadcast on 19 August — was a major step forward. I am not afraid, not very afraid; but I am delighted that countless thousands around the country will be encouraged to watch a great symphony orchestra at work.
Of the Proms I have been to, I would mention the late-night extravaganza of 22 August, featuring I Fagiolini. This group has made its reputation by doing exciting, alternative things with standard repertoire, so it came as a surprise that, given the Albert Hall and the Venetian multi-choir music of their programme, they didn’t dot performers about the place a bit. Instead the whole concert took place in one dimension, from the main stage. However, this had the advantage of presenting some of the most gloriously focused sounds I have heard from a mixed early-music ensemble. That their director, Robert Hollingworth, got such a diverse group of instruments and voices to blend and tune so well in such a big space is a tribute both to him and to his musicians. The result was one beautiful wash of sound after another.
I still find it bizarre that a festival which in theory encompasses the whole gamut of classical music has given the anniversary of Giovanni Gabrieli relatively short shrift. Let me say again that Gabrieli was not only a far more talented composer than Delius but also a far more influential one. This concert was it for Gabrieli at the Proms. One oddity was that the now well-established habit at early-music Proms of including an onstage interview between the presenter and the conductor took place before a note had been played. This seemed a little awkward for the audience in the building — listeners on the radio have different expectations — since what we wanted from all the musicians we had just clapped into existence was music. The explaining can come later, if at all. That early music seems to need contextualising where later music does not is (to quote Anthony Powell) unacceptable in its implications.
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