The end of the Proms season is nearly here, and I realised that I hadn’t yet been to one of the concerts. I considered Monday through to Friday as possibilities:
Monday: after Sunday’s concert was cancelled (and it didn’t even include A Short Ride in a Fast Machine!) I didn’t want to commit myself by buying a train ticket when I wasn’t sure the concert would go ahead.
Tuesday: I’m not a great fan of Rachmaninov’s orchestral music, and it’s not long since I last heard some at the Proms (a performance of The Bells).
Wednesday: Mahler 2 with Haitink would doubtless be wonderful, but I couldn’t get there sufficiently early to be sure of getting in, as it’s bound to be very popular.
Friday: ends a bit late and I don’t think that the Albert Hall is the best acoustic for listening to Mozart.
So it’s going to be Bruch and Shostakovich on Thursday night.
Just be preapred for the screaming hordes of Josh Bell groupies…
Most prommers I know are taking th night off for that one.
As long as they don’t prevent me from getting in I don’t mind. I’m going for the Shostakovich.
I don’t know any regular Prommers any more, and I rather miss the ‘Prommers website’ which used to exist. We never found out about the origins of the whistle which delayed a Prom some of the family went to last year – the BBC’s equipment or the RAH’s own public address system?
So far as I can recall it was the emergency tannoy in the hall that they pinned the blame on.
This year a BBC walkie-talkie got left under the stage which caused a certain amount of disruption to the start of one Prom.
Should also have said that the prommers’ website still exists http://www.promenaders.freeserve.co.uk/Door6.html but updates are ratehr infrequent – will have to chase the webmaster…
David