Prom 24: BBC Symphony Orchestra/ Davis, Royal Albert Hall

Edward Seckerson
Wednesday 03 August 2011 11:50 EDT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The Royal Albert Hall can be an intimate place, mysteriously transforming on occasions from monster auditorium to private salon.

There’s something about a small group of players, or in this case singers – the BBC Singers - in close harmony that effects that transformation and so it came to pass that the short vocal preface to each half of this BBC Symphony Orchestra Prom gently illuminated the private side of two very public figures: Edward Elgar and Percy Grainger.

What better preface to the grand but sweetly inflected Elgar Violin Concerto than his exquisite part-song There is Sweeter Music. The piquant clash of tonalities dividing male and female voices suggested uncharted regions and as the hushed alternation of these tiny choruses set up a rocking motion on the word “sleep” one actually wanted to eschew applause for the entrance of Tasmin Little and segue directly into the Violin Concerto.

Here, too, is sweeter music born of grand ambition and restless strife and if I say that Little’s performance seemed always to be seeking repose that would convey some measure of all the things that were right about it. It was possessed of a quiet beauty, full of lovely half-shades and grazing sigh-like slides – very feminine, very English, with poise, modesty, and civility foremost. But other words need to apply here, too, and for all the sporadic fire in her bow I never ever sensed or experienced the unbridled passion that drives this piece – it never really and truly “let go” as a performance.

Most affecting was the finale’s huge and far-reaching cadenza where tender remnants of all that had passed took us quietly, movingly, back to before. Suddenly, fleetingly, Little was right inside Elgar’s head and heart.

The other honorary Englishman surfacing from “Down Under” was Percy Grainger but he bowed in with that Irish Tune from County Derry (“Danny Boy”), wordless but scrumptious of harmony with the soaring tenors of the BBC Singers like a corona around each radiant climax. And what could be more “complete” as a tribute on the 50th anniversary of his death than his Suite In a Nutshell, its rollocking and subversive jauntiness (cue battalions of tuned percussion) offset by the most spectacular example of his fabulous orchestral imagination: a rhapsodic “Pastoral” which, in this splendid performance under Andrew Davis, opened up huge horn-crested vistas at once awesome and unexpected.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in