The Proms Royal Albert Hall ****
The Last Night of the Proms may remain obstinately impervious to change, but other traditions within this most British of cultural institutions are allowed to mutate and evolve. Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has long since abdicated its honoured position on the penultimate night in favour of a peripatetic slot earlier in the eight-week series, and for the 106th season of proms, launched last night at the Royal Albert Hall, there was a new, 21st-century look to the opening concert too.
It has become customary over the last decade to kick off the with a major, evening-long choral work, something grand and sonorous that could expand into every corner of this problematic auditorium. This time there was still a choral work to end the programme -Janacek's raw, physical Glagolitic Mass, conducted with the right degree of theatricality by Andrew Davis, beginning his last Proms as the BBC Symphony Orchestra's chief conductor - but the first half was made up of popular classics that would not have been out of place in a Last Night programme either.
Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, echoing down from the gallery of the hall, and Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, in Leopold Stokowski's affectionate and endearing orchestration, in troduced the two anniversarians, whose achievements will be celebrated in numerous programmes to come, while the star-turn was provided by Yevgeny Kissin in Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto.
Kissin first appeared at the Proms in 1990, but over the last few years he seems to have become something of a mascot here; in 1997 he was the first pianist to give a full-length recital in the series, and now seemingly he can do no wrong whenever he appears. His account of the Rachmaninov was technically immaculate, but otherwise quite characterless, neither assertive nor poetic, never suggesting an instinctive response to the music. What seemed like a wonderful, boundless talent when he first appeared in west has never matured as it should have done.
In the hall the balance between the piano and orchestra consistently favoured the latter - radio listeners might well have heard a better balance, as they so often do from the Albert Hall. But since the passion and involvement stemmed from Davis rather than the soloist that might have been a good thing.
The Glagolitic Mass chimed with the over-arching theme of this year's concerts - man's relationship with God. Janacek's very personal take on the movements of the mass is quasi-operatic, and the multi-national line-up of soloists for this performance were all experienced opera singers too - the soprano Christine Brewer, mezzo Louise Winter, tenor David Kuebler and bass Nikolai Putilin. In fact they don;t have very much to do in this work; the real focus is on the chorus and the orchestra and under Davis both the combined forces of the BBC Singers and the BBC Symphony Chorus, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra itself, ensured that no detail of this vivid score went unnoticed.
***** Unmissable **** Recommended *** Enjoyable ** Mediocre * Terrible
