Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

Well, we have a Proms season. It's difficult to know quite what to make of it; on the one hand, hurrah, but on the other, ominously cautious noises about Promming - as the notes delicately point out, hanging out with hundreds of strangers in close proximity indoors may not be the most healthy thing to do this summer. One the one hand, back to normal; on the other, not normal at all. No season tickets for sale (I can hear the outrage already); day tickets (whether they will be standing or not, or where they will be located, TBC) will be available online only (I can hear more outrage). It feels like there is a risk that the Proms will be without atmosphere (though obviously, viral particles within that atmosphere are the whole problem).

And that's before you get to the personal element: what risk do I want to take and will the travel logistics cope? I should be safely second-vaccinated well before the start of the season, but it's not an absolute guarantee. If other acquaintances might not be going, the social element would be missing. But, it's a siren calling and the will to move to a more normal state is definitely there. If not now, when?

But on to the music. Some of the programme listings are very thin and I suspect subject to late alteration, potentially depending on international travel. No late-night concerts. Lunchtime Cadogan Hall concerts repeated in the evening, presumably to allow for a reduced-capacity audience. Notably absent from the so-far published programme are Mahler, Beethoven 9, Debussy's La Mer, and Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique (though it's become a tradition that I miss that for random unexpected reasons), and only a single (and relatively lightweight) Shostakovich symphony. These could (especially the Beethoven, which is a true Proms staple) make appearances in some of the "mystery" Proms to be announced later. But I suspect there's also a practical element of avoiding the largest-scale works.

Here's a long list.

• The First Night of the Proms - Poulenc's Organ Concerto


• Organ Recital by Olivier Latry; potentially followed by an all-Mozart programme (I'm not a particular Mozart fan, but the fortieth symphony is a favourite)


• Purcell, Saint-Saens, Brahms with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales


• CBSO - a favourite Brahms symphony, and I'm interested to hear the Ruth Gipps


• Ives and Dvorak's New World


• The Aurora Orchestra playing Stravinsky's The Firebird from memory


• The Manchester Collective - Gorecki inter alia


• Piazzolla at the Cadogan Hall


• Chineke! with music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Florence Price


• The Eight Seasons - a conceit I've seen before, mixing Vivaldi and Piazzolla


• Film Music


• Another organ recital - this time by Thomas Trotter, followed by an interesting John Wilson quasi-Viennese programme

It's impossible to say yet whether I'll make it to any of them.