Imagine a dynamic eight-week classical music series continuing through the warm summer months of London, England, staged at the commanding Royal Albert Hall for wildly enthusiastic audiences. Such is the BBC Proms 2024 – a series of 73 concerts in London, plus another 17 in other parts of the UK, designed to delight the senses, catch the heart and intrigue the intellect.
I had the exhilarating pleasure of attending three Proms in late August – Prom 43: Pictures at an Exhibition; Prom 46: The Planets; and Proms 47 & 48: Doctor Who Prom. All were transcendent in different ways, attesting to audiences’ enduring fascination with the Proms year after year.
The Royal Albert Hall itself is a breathtaking venue with excellent acoustics, shaped like a cake with multiple, decorated layers that can accommodate an audience of 5,000 —including 1,000 “Prommers” who queue up early to buy £8 (about $10.50) standing tickets in front of the stage and top tier of the hall.
That each of these three Proms filled the Royal Albert Hall to near capacity — including the hundreds of happily standing Prommers — attests to the popularity of the series and success of the BBC’s stated aim “to bring the best in classical music to the widest possible audience.”
Prom 43: Pictures at an Exhibition (22 August 2024)
Written as a piano suite by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874 as a tribute to artist Viktor Hartmann, who had died prior to an exhibition of 400 of his paintings, the 10 movements of Pictures at an Exhibition include “Gnome,” “The Old Castle” and “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks,” as translated into English.
This performance of Pictures offered a rarely conducted 1915 orchestration by Proms founder Henry Wood, which excludes interluding “Promenade” music after an initial introduction, and adds more instruments than other versions, as well as bells during the “Cattle” movement and the Royal Albert Hall’s impressively grand organ (plus lots of bells) during “Heroes Gate at Kiev”—immersive sounds that added to the audience’s visceral delight of the music.
Additionally delightful was conductor Kazuki Yamada leading the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Yamada seemed to graciously invite rather than direct his musicians, with soft hands that could (and did) become forceful and precise when necessary.
Each movement evoked what one would imagine as the painting of its title. “Cattle” captured the slow and deliberate movement of cows; “Limoges, Market Place” conveyed a lively shopping scene; and “Catacombs (Roman Tomb) – With the Dead in the Language of the Dead” sounded sufficiently morose.
The final “Heroes Gate at Kiev” provided a resounding finish, with multiple sonorous brass instruments, two harpists, an organist above the orchestra and loud bells from the top of the hall. Wow!
Yamada was playful at times, briefly mimicking a little chicken while conducting “Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks” and afterward climbing up to pay respects to the bust of Wood that overlooks the back of the RAH stage.
Most Proms feature additional pieces as a lead-in to the main performance and Prom 43 was no exception, beginning with Maurice Ravel’s enchanting Mother Goose suite of five pieces. The orchestra’s flautists led a springy “Hop-o’ My-Thumb,” joined by the harpist’s airy strings and first violinist’s sweet strings. Resounding percussion at back of the orchestra rounded out the suite in “The Fairy Garden.”
Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27 in B flat major, K595 featured fluid piano soloist Paul Lewis at the front of the stage, accompanied by violins. Though the structure of the piece seems more through repetition of phrases than forward movement, it carried a plaintive, wistful feeling, despite its overall lively, Mozartian rhythm.
And finally, making its Proms premiere, was female composer Augusta Holmès’s 1888 La nuit et l’amour(Night and Love), a lovely and interesting six-minute piece extracted from one of her symphonies, with a longing quality produced by melodic violins and cellos, accented by harp.
Then, after the interval, Pictures at an Exhibition. As my first Proms experience ever, Prom 43 was an absolute revelation, mostly due to Yamada’s graceful music direction.
Prom 46: The Planets (25 August 2024)
Gustav Holst’s The Planets, Op. 32, written between 1914 and 1917, blends astrological tropes with enrapturing music. As a composer who dabbled in reading horoscopes, Holst was inspired to compose the musical signature of each planet (except Pluto, only discovered in 1930, demoted to dwarf in 2006) per its astrological personality.
Experiencing the intricate and harmonious orchestration of each piece, and how each resonates with the planet’s astrological meaning (as someone who dabbles a bit myself), I can see how it would have taken Holst three years to compose them.
“Mars, the Bringer of War” is probably one of the more well-known pieces, currently echoed in composer John Williams’s Star Wars music, especially its foreboding Empire theme. But in its sustained marching created by percussionists, and violinists tapping bows on strings, “Mars, the Bringer of War” is even more ominous and threatening, reverberating through the bones via the live orchestra.
“Venus, Bringer of Peace” seems to pick up where Mars’s devastating war leaves off, initiated by a hopeful clarion call of French horns, flutes and cellos, gradually leading to a wavelike crescendo of violin and melodic harp offering a balm for the soul.
“Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” may be even more well known than “Mars,” seemingly familiar from documentaries on either “economic development” or “nature’s grandeur,” with horns, violins and cymbals resonating together to connote magnificence, industrial expansion, movement, large spaces, benevolence, hope and future progress. Yes, it sounded like all that.
And so each piece enraptured in its own way — a rapidly lyrical “Mercury, the Winged Messenger,” sustained by xylophonic high notes; a slow, plodding, deliberate, sometimes melancholic “Saturn, Bringer of Old Age,” with its heavy percussion and ominously presaging harp like time ticking; a Fantasia-like “Uranus, the Magician,” with bassoons creating the sound of trudging robots or perhaps Willy Wonka’s industrious yet enigmatic Oompa Loompas.
The final piece, “Neptune, the Mystic,” sounded the strangest of the compositions, perhaps in tune with the planet’s astrological associations of nebulousness, hiddenness and dissolution. As with “Venus,” French horn and flute make a call, but soon the Royal College of Music Chamber Choir, secreted high up in the Royal Albert Hall rafters, brought in its airy voices to take “Neptune” in an otherworldly direction, ultimately dissolving in a sea of intonation.
With a firm yet not unkind hand, conductor Sakari Oramo led the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra solidly through the complexities of The Planets after first guiding the Sibelius Academy Symphony Orchestra through Jean Sibelius’s ballad The Wood Nymph and a new, commissioned composition – Songs from the Countryside, as translated into English – by young Finnish composer Lara Poe, featuring Finnish soprano Anu Komsi.
Both The Wood Nymph and the technically complex Songs from the Countryside provided an enticing prelude to The Planets, like extended amuse-bouches, presaging both Holst’s intricate lyricism and transporting ethereality.
Proms 47 & 48: Doctor Who (26 August 2024)
Now for the party Prom. A popular Proms reprise, the Doctor Who Prom is everything you’d imagine it to be—and more. With music, video, a near continuous light show and various live “monsters” from the long-running BBC television show of the same name, Doctor Who Prom proved a fitting tribute not just to the series, but to the fans who’ve sustained it since 1963.
While the Prom’s primary focus was this year’s season – featuring Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and Millie Gibson as his traveling companion Ruby Sunday – the music and video clips also harkened back in time to all the Doctors, including Matt Smith, Peter Capaldi, Tom Baker, and first female Doctor Jodie Whitaker.
Conductor Alastair King led the BBC National Orchestra of Wales through 14 orchestral pieces from the series, enhanced by voices of the London Philharmonic Choir, stellar soprano Aida Garifullina and occasional other singers.
Presenter Catherine Tate – who played Donna, companion to the 10th and 14th Doctors, both portrayed by David Tennant – kept the audience both informed and amused with her down-to-earth yet spunky delivery.
The entire show was spectacular – well paced and chock full of delightful video clips from the series, lights galore, the TARDIS on stage and of course the music, mostly composed by Murray Gold for the series, with “The Thirteenth Doctor” composed by Segun Akinola, whose name Tate could somehow not get right.
“Fifteen” – which Murray composed for the current 15th Doctor played by Gatway, who featured in the accompanying video – kicked off the show in a rollicking way, featuring Garifullina’s angelic voice backed by the choir and two baritone saxophone players storming the front of the stage.
The videos, brilliant lights, and monsters descending the aisles to interact with the audience were a blast to experience, though it distracted from appreciating the orchestra itself which brought the music to vivid life, as with the other Proms. But who cares when you’re having fun.
Other songs included “Into the Vortex,” “I Am the Doctor,” a sweet “The Life of Sunday” and “Vale Decem,” in which soprano Garifullina absolutely wowed with her dulcet voice just before the interval.
“The Companions Suite” accompanied a video tribute to the Doctor’s various traveling companions over the years, most receiving enthusiastic audience applause, with “The Legend of Ruby Sunday” video subsequently focusing exclusively on the current season’s companion. (The heavy emphasis on the current season, including two songs on its companion, was certainly designed to promote it.)
A final highlight was Rob Grainer and Delia Derbyshire’s original 1963 “Doctor Who Theme,” reworked by Murray for 2024 with additional musical complexities while maintaining its core iconic refrain. And a frisky bonus song of “There’s Always a Twist at the End” from the current season – featuring twisting dancers in go-go boots – capped things off with a festive, light touch at the end.
The Doctor Who Prom was well-orchestrated, not just musically but as an event, from start to finish, audience members exiting Royal Albert Hall exuberant, having had a literally out-of-this-world experience.
This year's Proms season continues for another week before ending with the popular and patriotic Last Night of the Proms on Sept. 14. You can hear recordings of the 2024 Proms for a limited time on BBC’s Radio 3, though it’s not the same as being there.
And BBC Proms 2025 would be well worth working into your summer travel plans, even if you don’t normally attend classical music concerts. Each Prom seems designed to meet audiences where they are, taking them on a gorgeous musical journey full of risks, nuance and utter joy.
BBC Proms 2024 continues through Sept. 14, with performances each day at the Royal Albert Hall in Kensington Gore, South Kensington, London. For tickets and information, visit BBC Proms or the Royal Albert Hall.
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