Summer in London! Where every major capital in the world more or less shuts down at this time of year, as far as classical music is concerned, London stages the greatest music festival in the world.
Summer in London! Where every major capital in the world more or less shuts down at this time of year, as far as classical music is concerned, London stages the greatest music festival in the world. No less than 74 concerts (nearly all of which are worth going to) form the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts – the Proms, where for almost no money (£5), you can have the best 'seat' in the house in the magnificent Royal Albert Hall. Of course, you have to stand, (there are seats too of course – I recommend sitting in the stalls block G for best sound) but I find that standing can help music concentration. Unless you have a season ticket, you have to queue and learn to judge when to get there in time. But that can be fun too, and you never know whom you might meet there! Below is my own guide to the current season, taking us up until mid-September. The Proms really do make London a great place to be during the summer. There is of course, the Edinburgh Festival too, which runs from August 12 to September 4, but nothing really compares to the Proms for accessibility, friendliness, and above all, high musical ambition.
Of course, even experienced instincts can sometimes go wrong. Equally there are unexpected delights that can come one's way. I was recently out of London for two weeks in a place (Venice) where there was no music. I came back hungry for music and went to two concerts at the Wigmore Hall on one day, listening to players of whom I knew none. I just liked the programmes they were playing. Both concerts were exceptional. A string trio from Vienna, all brothers, called the Eggner Trio, played Haydn and Dvorak magnificently, and in the evening, a young American pianist called Andrew Brownell, giving a debut London recital, even though he had in 2006 won second prize in the prestigious Leeds Piano Competition, showed himself to be an extraordinary and very individual artist in his own right, with a musical touch that was all his own. But then last month I recommended a visit to Glyndbourne, to hear Wagner's great opera Mastersingers. At great expense I got myself down there, only to be disappointed by what was essentially a very provincial performance, and a stage picture that was of such kitsch that I could barely look at the stage. As in everything, you can't win them all! But it is always worth a try, and in classical music, as with everything, you learn too, from the less-than good.
Highlights of the Proms
As for the the highlight evenings of the Proms, first of all I recommend you look at the programmes yourself either online, or in the book that can be found in most newsagents. Forgetting the Last Night, which for myself I can live without, I am excited to be able to go and hear concert performance of Rossini's magnum opus William Tell on July 16, conducted by Antonio Pappano, of Covent Garden, but here directing large forces from Rome. Everybody will recognise the famous overture of course, but in fact the opera is rarely performed, and I have not heard it complete since my childhood, when I went to a performance at Drury Lane Theatre, before the world premiere of My Fair Lady there. Then on the July 20, the great Czech conductor, Jiri Belohlavek conducts two Czech masterpieces, Dvorak's Cello Concerto, and Smetana's six tone poems My Country, in a concert that cannot fail to give pleasure. Then on July 24, another great conductor, the Russian, Semyon Bychkov, conducts once again, Verdi's Requiem, with an all-star cast led by the glamorous and wonderful dramatic soprano, Marina Poplavskaya. In just a week, there are three must-go evenings, and there are others, not to mention chamber and 'smaller forces' events at Cadogan Hall, near Sloane Square tube, which begins on July 18 with J. S. Bach's immortal Golberg Variations played on the harpsichord by Mahan Esfahani. Don't forget the late night Proms which take place sometimes after the main evening, starting usually around 10.15, and going on till just before midnight. I rather fancy the one on the August 2 of the music of Australian Percy Grainger, a composer of bittersweet light music, usually based on folk music, British and from around the world, he is a figure worth exploring, also in the main concert of the night, that includes Tasmin Little, a really talented young violinist, playing Elgar's Concerto.
On the August 5, there will surely be a huge queue around the block for the now legendary Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra from Venezuela, playing Mahler's 2nd Symphony, the Resurrection, which using huge forces, evokes the Revelation of the Day of Judgement to huge dramatic and musical effect. But the orchestra, under its charismatic youthful conductor Gustavo Dudamel, whose talent is now sweeping the world, has transformed the image of classical music in his country, and indeed of the country itself, through the music-making of young people, even of school age, often coming from seriously deprived backgrounds. The following night, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, will rise to the challenge of their colleagues from Venezuela, with a great programme to be followed by a late-night Prom by Nigel Kennedy playing Bach. Should be special, and early booking is recommended. The following evening there is a beautiful concert with the Brahms Violin Concerto played by Christian Tezlaff, followed by Mahler's one hour-plus song cycle for four singers called Das klagende Lied (the Plaintive Song), the rarely played work in which the great composer found his true and inimitable style. And so it goes on. Everything from a late evening of Steve Reich – including his famous clapping music, a complete performance under Valery Gergiev of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake – no dancers, but great, great music, the UK premieres on August 20 and September 7of Harrison Birtwistle's Angel Fighter (based on the story of Jacob and the angel) and his new violin concerto. Harry Birtwistle, born in 1934, is for me undoubtedly Britain's greatest living composer. There are a number of other premieres, mostly by established composers, and it is perhaps a little disappointing that younger composers are not being performed. But there are still endless mines of music being seemed – film music for instance, foreign orchestras from Paris, Stuttgart, Rome, Israel, St Petersburg, Zurich, Budapest, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Amsterdam (no special order) and of course, Caracas. I would want to be present at a performance of Der Freischutz, the Free Shooter, the archetypal German romanic concert performance, in a to-me unknown version by Hector Berlioz, the great French romantic composer. This is on the September 9, and is conducted by the inimitable John Eliot Gardiner. The following night is the Last Night. Watch it on TV if you must!
Norman Rosenthal spent more than thirty years as director of exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts. Since he was nine-years-old, he has been haunting London's many concert and opera venues, large and small, absorbing classical, opera and contemporary music, all of which he enjoys in equal measure.
