Post by Billy R on Jul 21, 2009 12:44:10 GMT 1
This year I’m playing all four Tchaikovsky works for piano and orchestra over the course of the season, and tonight I play the most unusual of them - the last piece he wrote, only one movement completed before his death, the quirky 3rd Piano Concerto with its colossal cadenza. Although I’ve performed at the Proms over a dozen times over the years since my early 20s, I’ve never played on the opening night before. There is an extra frisson of excitement to be involved at the very start of such an extensive feast, and the addition of the ‘live’ BBC2 and Radio 3 broadcasts injects that extra twist of adrenaline into the mix. We need enough nerves to rise up to the occasion, but not too much so that we spin out of control. Despite the pressures of a concert like this viewed from in front of the piano on stage, out of my right eye is glimpsed the wonderful Proms audience, one of the friendliest and most supportive in the world. There is the sense that the thousands of people filling the hall really want to be there. They have not just bought season-tickets months in advance out of habit or duty, but have often walked up to the door on a whim, much as one might decide at the last minute to see a movie - and, if standing in the arena, they will have paid a lot less. Tourists, Londoners, students, the unemployed and stockbrokers mingle, listen and applaud in perfect social counterpoint.
The perennial fluidity and invention of the Proms is a constant source of wonder. Its British identity is held as firmly as a bulldog’s jaw, yet it presents more international artists, orchestras and works in its weeks’ duration than any other festival anywhere. It keeps alive the antiquated idea that ‘live’ music heard in concert might still be an exciting way to spend an evening, yet the central role of the BBC – radio, television and internet – ensures as rich and vital a feast of broadcasting as it’s possible to imagine. The Proms are sheer good fun, but also surprising, often challenging, never snobbish. The most seasoned concert goer will always find something which he has never heard before (not counting the many world premieres), but there are enough of the great standard classics to seduce the most innocent classical music virgin. And the sheer variety! Where else could a semi-staged Gilbert and Sullivan opera and an all-Harrison Birtwhistle concert sit side-by-side with such consonance and naturalness? Where else can over 5,000 people choose either to sit upstairs with Stella McCartney bags on their laps, or lie on duffle bags on the floor in the arena (yes, literally), with no real distinction or censure. And the huge, magnificent dome in which the concerts take place – the Victorian Albert Hall; a temple of extravagance, exuberance and eccentricity, where Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand can seem to have space to spare, yet the faintest whisper of a chamber choir’s last breath meets the ear through the silence.
It is a festival of Hope and Glory; and, through modern technology from radio to wireless internet, its reach is wider still, and wider.
The perennial fluidity and invention of the Proms is a constant source of wonder. Its British identity is held as firmly as a bulldog’s jaw, yet it presents more international artists, orchestras and works in its weeks’ duration than any other festival anywhere. It keeps alive the antiquated idea that ‘live’ music heard in concert might still be an exciting way to spend an evening, yet the central role of the BBC – radio, television and internet – ensures as rich and vital a feast of broadcasting as it’s possible to imagine. The Proms are sheer good fun, but also surprising, often challenging, never snobbish. The most seasoned concert goer will always find something which he has never heard before (not counting the many world premieres), but there are enough of the great standard classics to seduce the most innocent classical music virgin. And the sheer variety! Where else could a semi-staged Gilbert and Sullivan opera and an all-Harrison Birtwhistle concert sit side-by-side with such consonance and naturalness? Where else can over 5,000 people choose either to sit upstairs with Stella McCartney bags on their laps, or lie on duffle bags on the floor in the arena (yes, literally), with no real distinction or censure. And the huge, magnificent dome in which the concerts take place – the Victorian Albert Hall; a temple of extravagance, exuberance and eccentricity, where Mahler’s Symphony of a Thousand can seem to have space to spare, yet the faintest whisper of a chamber choir’s last breath meets the ear through the silence.
It is a festival of Hope and Glory; and, through modern technology from radio to wireless internet, its reach is wider still, and wider.