Proms promise

On first opening a new Proms prospectus, the enthusiastic amateur immediately looks for the things that are there, the things that are not there and, a mixture of the two, the things he hopes will be there. What I hope for every year goes roughly like this: the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics (yes to both); a big operatic production (two this time, one each from the Royal Opera and ENO); one or two Really Famous (and preferably Really Old) artists (Barenboim, Boulez, Dutoit, Gergiev, Haitink, Perahia); some big anniversaries to be celebrated (Debussy, Delius, Cage, Knussen and Goehr — a middling crop); symphonies by Bruckner and Mahler (three each); some top early music (very little); Saint-Saëns’s Third Symphony (no).

Once these preliminaries have been rather breathlessly undertaken, the mood lightens and our inspector begins to winkle out the strands that will hold the annual colossus together. In the not-too-distant past, these were as cleverly interwoven as the countersubjects in a Bach fugue; nowadays they are fewer, easier to pick out and more attached to the excitements of the day, which, this summer, are exceptional.