Photo by Sim Canetty-Clarke
In Andrew Clark's fine feature about the Proms (item above), it's startling to read his "Top Five" selections:
Critic’s choice: Five not to missJuly 17 — A Proms coup: Thomas Adès conducts the premiere of his biggest orchestral work, Totentanz.
July 22, 23, 26, 27, 28 — The first complete Proms cycle of Der Ring des Nibelungen, led by Daniel Barenboim, the greatest living Wagner conductor. [Say WHAT?! How has the globetrotting Clark missed Thielemann, Levine, Runnicles, Dohnanyi, Janowski, Jurowski, Boulez, etc., etc.?]
August 3 — The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra plays Strauss’s Blue Danube and Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony — a pairing that you’d only find at the Proms [Does the combination make the magnificent, but overplayed Fifth one of the best offerings?] August 8 — Nigel Kennedy’s late night performance of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons promises to be informal, uplifting and electrifying [again, is this really unmissable?]
August 26 — John Wilson’s Hollywood Rhapsody (a celebration of film scores) builds on the success of his recent "hits from the musicals." [Really? Top Five?]
Take a look at the season schedule and find dozens of more interesting concerts than Clark's third, fourth, and fifth choices. Beginning with Friday's three-hour season-opening First Night of the Proms, conducted by Sakari Oramo, with soprano Sally Matthews, baritone Roderick Williams, and Stephen Hough, piano:
- Julian Anderson, Harmony (commissioned world premiere)
- Britten, Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
- Rachmaninov, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
- Lutoslawski, Variations on a Theme by Paganini
- Vaughan Williams, A Sea Symphony