The Prom on August 4 was presented by BBC Symphony Orchestra, along with the BBC Symphony Chorus and the Constanza Chorus, conducted by Hannu Tintu. It opened with Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna by Pierre Boulez, in commemoration of the centennial of Boulez’s birth. Written later in his life, when Boulez’s conducting career seemed to limit his compositional activity, Rituel is an austere ceremonial progression of textures and instrumental colors, lasting approximately half an hour. Both its structural strategy and its expressive effect are somewhat reminiscent of Stravinky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments. It was given a very effective performance with the appropriate concentration and seriousness. The other work on the program, Mahler’s Das Klangende Lied is a rather remarkable piece. Written when he was twenty, Mahler considered it to be the moment in which he found himself as a composer. It is remarkable both for the very great talent it demonstrates and for how really terrible it is as a whole piece. Both Brahms and Liszt, as heads of two different juries considering the work for performance, rejected it; they were both right.

The Prom concert on August 13, presented by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Eva Ollikainen, featured Before We Fall, a ‘cello concerto by Anna Thorvaldsdottir, with the very wonderful Johannes Moser soloist, surrounded by early twentieth century masterworks, Varese Intégrale, Ravel Bolero, and Stravinsky The Rite of Spring. The most remarkable thing about the Thorvaldsdottir concerto is its instrumental writing and orchestration. The ‘cello is several times put in registral situations with surrounding instrumentation which it would seem should completely bury it, but the soloist is always audible. There is also a remarkable use throughout the work of octave doublings. Everything is in the service of what the composer, in her note about the piece, says is the most important expressive concept of the work: “…the notion of teetering on the edge–of balancing on the verge of a multitude of opposites.” Before We Fall is a very compelling and beautiful work, although it could have used more of the fine sense of timing and pacing demonstrated by the Ravel and Stravinsky pieces on the concert.

Joe Hisaishi conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, joined by the BBC Singers, the National Youth Voices, and the Philharmonia Chorus for the Prom on August 14. The program consisted of two pieces of his, The Symphonic Suite The Boy and the Heron, in which Hisaishi was also the piano soloist, and The End of the World, both receiving their European premiere, and The Desert Music by Steve Reich. One is immediately struck on hearing Hisaishi’s music by the command of the sonorities and colors of the instrumental writing, and the immediate appeal of the musical ideas. The argument of the music is not always as continually engaging in The Boy and the Heron, despite its many pleasing qualities, possibly because it was written as music for the film of the same name by Hayao Miyazaki. The End of the World is a more independent statement, beginning initially with Hisaishi’s reaction to visiting the site in New York of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The work developed over several versions, increasingly concerned with the anxiety and chaos of the original attack and further with values of the aftermath of the event. The work concludes with Hisaishi’s effective recomposed version of the song The End of the World, recorded in the 1960s by Skeeter Davis. Although the program credited the lyrics of the song, which are by Sylvia Dee, it made no mention of the person who wrote the tune, Arthur Kent. The singing of countertenor John Holiday, the soloist in the work, was particularly beautiful and expressive. The concert concluded with The Desert Music by Steve Reich. A protest and warning against nuclear weaponry, the work, which was written between 1982 and 1984, practices the compositional procedures Reich developed leading up to Tehillim. Its workings and musical language were undoubtedly a precedent for Hisaishi’s compositional methods and style, so it was a very fitting companion on the program.

The Prom concert on August 15 was presented by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, joined by the men of the BBC National Chorus of Wales and Synergy Vocals, conducted by Ryan Bancroft. The advertisement for the concert featured The Ravel G major Piano Concerto, with Benjamin Grosvenor as soloist, and that piece, very masterfully performed, and followed by a barn burning performance of the third movement of the Prokofiev Seventh Piano Sonata as an encore, ended the first half of the concert. It began with a performance of Revue Music by Sofia Gubaidulina. Written when Gubaidulina was very much out of favor with the government of the Soviet Union, where she lived at the time, and when she was very desperate for work and for any means of financial survival, the work was initially conceived of as a sort of concerto grosso for jazz band, including electric guitars and vocals, and orchestra. The “jazz” it evokes is actually more the music of American sixties television music (the program note suggested Lalo Schifrin, particularly his theme for Mission: Impossible), filtered through Russian early twentieth century style and procedures. The result was both interesting and enjoyable.

The final work on the concert Dimitri Shostakovich’s Thirteen Symphony, Babi Yar, setting poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Since it is concerned with governmental oppression of a class of its citizens deemed unworthy and inferior, in the case of the work’s subject, Jews, and since its history is involved with governmental suppression of artists and works of artists which do not conform with the government’s agenda, the work seemed unsettlingly timely. Bass Baritone Kostas Smoriginas joined the men of the BBC National Chorus of Wales in a powerful performance of the work.