Thu 18 Jul 2024

 

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First Night of the Proms, review: Just Stop Oil didn’t dent the atmosphere – we all came out rejuvenated

This concert was heart-warming for its engagement with today’s burning issues, while simultaneously celebrating the timeless joy of music-making

This year’s Proms started with a spontaneous ovation for an ensemble that was not originally going to be there at all: the BBC Singers. Though earmarked for closure earlier this year, the choir enjoyed such an upswell of public support that they were reprieved and restored to the programme. I hope their stay of execution will last.

They joined forces with the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra for a rousing opener: the choral version of Sibelius’s Finlandia (1899, revised 1948), a celebration of what is now Nato’s newest member, and in particular its fight for independence from Russia.

Its fervour, idealism and deep-dug intensity seemed rather topical – and as a whole, this concert was heart-warming for its engagement with today’s burning issues, while simultaneously celebrating the timeless joy of music-making. The two things are perfectly compatible. Who’d have guessed?

And Dalia Stasevska, the BBCSO’s principal guest conductor, is a treasure. Born in Kyiv, raised in Finland, at present heavily pregnant and, in her spare time, busy driving lorries of aid to Ukraine, she has oodles of energy and charisma; her down-to-earth warmth and her delight in the music seems to bring out the best in everybody, the audience included.

(Photo: Chris Christodoulou/BBC Proms)

The world premiere of Let There Be Light, a BBC commission from the Ukrainian composer Bohdana Frolyak was an incarnation of darkness, evoking the pain of Frolyak’s homeland today, its fragments of melody dwindling down to a last shiver of breath on flute and mark tree.

But the light came next: in Grieg’s Piano Concerto, soloist Paul Lewis – the Liverpudlian pianist who now lives in Grieg’s homeland, Norway – played with stylish poise, relishing the big romantic gestures. He and Stasevska in excellent partnership gave brightness and bounce to the folksy rhythms, ardour aplenty to the big tunes; rarely has the piece sounded so fresh and lovable.

(Photo: Chris Christodoulou/BBC Proms)

Sibelius’s early cantata Snöfrid, based on Viktor Rydberg’s combative poem, returned us to Finnish heroism. Stasevska and the massed chorus offered lashings of fire and ice; and its narration, exhorting the hero to “wage the unwinnable war”, was delivered with dignity by the glitter-gowned Lesley Manville. (A brief attempt by Just Stop Oil at waging another unwinnable war between pieces was quickly quashed.)

Finally, A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra by Benjamin Britten, too rarely performed in such “grown-up” concerts, provided a brilliant display piece for the BBCSO. Many children in the audience seemed enraptured, including a lad of about six who happily conducted along. I think we all came out feeling positively rejuvenated.

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