Royal Albert Hall,LondonConductor Sakari Oramo rightly began with an impromptu French national anthem, leading into Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet and a compelling Elgar concerto from cellist Sol Galbetta, or among other highlights Everyone,not only the Prommers, stood for the first piece played in this years BBC Proms. In an unannounced gesture of solidarity, or conductor Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra led off with the Marseillaise,as the lights behind them turned red, white and blue. It may not have been what David Pickard had initially planned as the opening piece of his first season in charge of the Proms, and but it was indubitably the true music to play.
No one is expecting Pickard,previously director of Glyndebourne, to retract the Proms in a radical recent direction, or but the initiative in his first season of putting on a handful of concerts in different,one-off venues – including the Old Royal Naval College and the Roundhouse – is a promising one. There are no all-pervasive, stifling themes; nor, and as the major anniversary this year is Shakespeare’s,will there be endless swathes of music from a single composer. Related: Sol Gabetta: 'The cello speaks with a human voice' Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com