Prom 33

Thursday 8 August

It wasn't the LvB I was there for, it was Mitsuko Uchida! As you can see from the photo in this review, her outfit was gossamer elegance - though the jacket proved too much, and at some time between the first & second movements it was discarded, nearly floating to the first violins' desks..

Her playing is miraculous, her touch exquisite. And she played this as though it were but next door to Mozart. Of all Beethoven's piano concertos, this is the most Mozartian - no revolutionary here, but some tender phrases. I did wonder, however, if this was slightly under-rehearsed - there were moments (fleeting, yes, but they were there) where soloist & orchestra weren't totally together. However, it was nearly 20 years since Uchida had last played at the Proms - so any slight imperfections were forgiven immediately.

After the interval, Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique. This was the piece that introduced me to Berlioz as a child. We were in one of our irregular periods of owning a television (amazing to think that 'the telly' was not always the indispensable 42" necessity it seems to be today), and the BBC screened, I think, The Count of Monte Cristo as a children's serial. Which took, as its theme music, March to the Scaffold. I sat up & listened - I can't remember any of the serial (apart from the inevitable shot of a man in period costume on a horse), but I most definitely remember the music! Thus was I introduced to one of music's best composers & orchestrator - and writer, too.

Jansons took everything slowly at first, building the tension throughout the piece to a rip-roaring finale. An excellent antidote to the rain & damp in Wales...

Prom 34

As for our Nige - while marvelling at the queues round the block for this Prom, I listened at home. I'm not sure if the queues were a commentary on how people still 'get' Nigel; or how they only know him for this one piece, first recorded over 20 years ago. Those who were there enjoyed it - and had the freedom of the Bristol Proms to applaud when they wished. If you liked jazzy Ba-rock, you would have loved it. Baroque-lite, if you will. Because of the queues, the Prom was late starting - & Mr. K even later on stage. I hope those who needed to get the last Tube home were lucky. These events don't happen in a vacuum, Mr. K; not everyone has the luxury of sleeping on the following morning.