The Prom on August 20 commemorated the centennial of Miles Davis’s birth. Davis was undoubtedly one of the greatest and most important musicians of the 20th century, but he was not a composer and not just a performer. He was a composing performer, who probably never played the same thing the same way twice. His playing is known to many people, just about everybody now, through his recordings, which were a single example of how he would have done something, and which are also very much a product of his work with arrangers, most especially Gil Evans. It is their collaboration which is known through recordings such as Miles Ahead, Sketches of Spain, and Porgy and Bess. But those recordings can’t just be recreated, nor would anybody want them to be. So the audience for this Prom heard Ambrose Akinmusire, trumpet, Sam Harris, piano, Harish Raghavan, bass, Kendrick Scott, drums, along with the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Miho Hazama, all of them very very fine and wonderful musicians, evoking, through their own playing and different arrangements, which were nonetheless evocations of the famous arrangements, mostly by Gil Evans, the magical quality of Davis’s recordings, and for the most part it all succeeded wonderfully. (For this listener, for instance, the performance of My Ship came far short of the character and quality of Davis’s recording).

The program for the concert had a very detailed and informative account of Davis’s life and the development of his career by Alyn Shipton. It also included a short interview with Ambrose Akinmusire about Davis’s influence on succeeding musicians and, in fact, on some of the issues discussed above. It was altogether a very enjoyable evening of music making, celebrating Davis’s creations and achievements.

The bulk of the Prom two nights earlier, presented by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Cristian Mãelaru, was occupied by the Symphony No. 10 by Shostakovich. That work was preceded, though, by Skyline, a concerto for three percussionists and timpani by Édith Canat de Chizy, which was a BBC co-commission and which was receiving its UK premiere. The soloists were Lucy Landymore, Emma Arden, Delia Stevens, and Richard Cartidge. Skyline over its twenty minute length traces five stages from the emerging of the universe from blackness, through the dawn of the cosmos, the birth of different kinds of starts, the explosion and rhythm of pulsars, to the death of the cosmos. The four soloists were positioned around the orchestra which in fact became a sort of amplifier of their sounds and, in fact, of the argument of the work. The work was continually compelling in its sounds and riveting in its progress. Canat de Chizy was a composers I knew nothing about before this encounter and one who I will look out for going forward.

Probably due to the very oppressive cultural climate of the last years of Stalin’s rule in Russia, Shostakovich wrote, or at least, released very few major works during that time. The Tenth Symphony appeared a few months after Stalin’s death, and it was taken, and is probably still taken, as a commentary on that situation. The very abrasive scherzo, the second movement was apparently intended as a portrait of Stalin. This performance presented the work to its fullest advantage.

The advertising and presentation of this concert, which mentioned the Shostakovich only and the Canat de Chizy not at all, is an example of how the BBC is currently presenting these concerts in general. In this case, one might have assumed that the Shostakovich was the only piece on the concert, and one would have had to dig deep, or at least deeper, to find that there was another piece on the concert, and that it was by a living composer and had been commissioned by the BBC. The inclusion of newer pieces used to be celebrated; now it’s more or less hidden. The tactic seems pretty clear. One wonders if this particular approach to things really produces a larger audience, which is presumably the goal.

In a similar manner, the Prom of the 21st of August, presented by The BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Anja Bihlmaier, with soloists tenor Clay Hiley and mezzo soprano Jamie Barton, only promoted the final work on the concert, Das Lied von der Erde by Mahler, without mentioning the pieces on the first half of the concert, the Haydn Farewell Symphony (No. 45, in f sharp minor) and Mosaic by Bushra El-Turk. El-Turk is a British composer of Lebanese descent whose work has been very much involved with the integration of eastern and western musical elements. Mosaic, lasting 8 minutes, which was receiving its first performance at the Proms, was commissioned by the Manchester Camerata for a season which explored the question of cross-pollination of ideas between cultures. It’s compelling shape is one of increasing activity and intensity from the beginning to a climactic point where the bottom falls out of things and there is a very quiet music which evokes Byzantine chant which concludes the piece after a very brief reminiscence of the previous activity. It was a fine beginning to a concert of equally compelling pieces, all of them masterfully performed.