Grasping the content of the Proms these days has become a bewildering business. The best image I can give is of a contrapuntal web, teeming with themes, in which the principal subjects stand out against the detail, but where the detail nonetheless clamours for attention and the sheer profusion of it can seem overwhelming. When the planners inform their followers that the ‘highlights’ of the Proms Literary Festival ‘include’…one quickly realises that here is a festival which has moved on from being a simple series of orchestral concerts.
The press are furnished with two publications at the beginning of the season: the standard prospectus, which lists all the concerts in order, and an information booklet, which throws what the prospectus says into the air and lets it come to earth in so many categories that the reader of the prospectus might wonder where all those connections and interconnections were hidden.
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