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The Independent, 13 September 2015 |
Michael Church |
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Last Night of the Proms, 2015, London, Royal Albert Hall |
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Proms 75 and 76, Royal Albert Hall, review
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Two brilliant nights brought the curtain down on the Proms in
superb style |
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Saving the best till last, the Proms gave us two brilliant nights with the
Vienna Philharmonic, first under Semyon Bychkov’s inspired and meticulous
direction with symphonies by Brahms and Franz Schmidt, then under Simon
Rattle’s direction with Elgar’s Gerontius.
The Wagnerian roots of
this Roman Catholic affirmation of faith were made plain as Rattle extracted
a magnificently spacious account of the Prelude; the pianissimo entry of the
massive BBC Proms Youth Choir was a magical moment. Toby Spence delivered
the title role with a beautifully-projected sweetness of tone, while
Roderick Williams as the Priest brought baritonal warmth; Magdalena Kozena’s
over-busy hand gestures were initially distracting, but when she settled
into her role as Angel her singing radiated a majestic earth-mother
stillness. Everything in Rattle’s sculpting of this intricate work came
triumphantly together in its ecstatic close.
Opening with the
premiere of a deft little tone-poem by Eleanor Alberga entitled Arise,
Athena!, the first half of the last Prom was dominated by a scintillating
performance of Shostakovich’s second piano concerto by Benjamin Grrosvenor,
after which it was all fun and games. Grosvenor played stride and boogie,
Jonas Kaufmann sang Puccini, Danielle de Niese put sex into The Sound of
Music, and Marin Alsop made a worthy but anodyne speech about music versus
inequality.
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