First Night of the 2008 BBC Proms Season : Christine Brewer (soprano), Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano), Nicholas Daniel (oboe), Wayne Marshall (organ), Royal College of Music Brass, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Cond: Jiří Bĕlohlávek. The Royal Albert Hall, London, 18.7.2008 (ME) 

R. Strauss, Festliches Präludium
Mozart, Oboe Concerto in C major
R. Strauss, Four Last Songs
Messiaen, La Nativité du Seigneur – Dieu parmi nous
Beethoven, Rondo in B flat major for piano and orchestra
Elliott Carter, Caténaires for solo piano
Scriabin, The Poem of Ecstasy


‘Wondrous Machine! To thee the Warbling Lute,

Though us'd to Conquest, must be forc'd to yield: With thee unable to dispute.’

The immense organ of the RAH sits brooding over every concert, so it’s surprising that Strauss’ Festive Prelude has not previously opened a Proms season – it was a stroke of genius to programme it here, not only for its introductory character, but also because its inclusion formed a neat parallel to the Messiaen work which began the second half; the fact that the soloist was the almost impossibly cool Wayne Marshall can’t have done any harm either. Marshall and the orchestra gave it a stirring, triumphant performance, the perfect scene-setter.

The Prelude was first performed at the opening of the Konzerthaus in Vienna, that evening’s main work being Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, but here it was followed by a much less frequently performed piece, Mozart’s Oboe Concerto which Nicholas Daniel played with daring skill, especially in his own cadenza to the first movement. Conductor and orchestra really seemed to be enjoying themselves in the allegretto, with its foretaste of Die Entführung.

The programme’s central work was Strauss’ Four Last Songs, in which Christine Brewer gave a performance of magisterial authority and remarkable subtlety – her ability to convey the nuance of phrases such as ‘Wie ein Wunder vor mir’ whilst sustaining an unbroken legato line places her in the very highest rank of Strauss singers. The silence in the hall as ‘O weiter, stiller Friede!’ soared above the orchestra would have been the perfect complement to her artistry, had it not been followed by the inability of the French couple behind me to refrain from discussing their problems during ‘So tief im Abendrot!’ – but more of that later.

I have to admit that Messiaen is not amongst my fifty favourite composers – perhaps I am prejudiced by the fact that the profoundly Catholic education which he and I have in common did not inspire me to wish to express ‘the love for Jesus Christ of the communicant, of the Virgin, of the entire Church’ which is one of the themes of La Nativité du Seigneur. The work is grandiose and challenging, and Marshall filled the vast space with it most impressively.

In complete contrast to all this massiveness, Pierre-Laurent Aimard played both Beethoven’s Rondo in B flat major and Elliott Carter’s Caténaires with his characteristic lightness of touch and fleetness of manner – the latter piece was written for him in 2006, and the composer said of it, ‘…I became obsessed with the idea of a fast, one-line piece with no chords. It became a continuous chain of notes using different spacings, accents and colourings, to produce a wide variety of expression.’ The work is marked Jaillissant (gushing) and although the absence of chords challenged the ear, Aimard made a persuasive case for its special quality.

The Poem of Ecstasy concluded the concert – Scriabin is another composer whom I could cheerfully live without, although the notion that the ecstasy of the title is of artistic creation has a pleasingly Keatsian aura. This was another massive piece, filling the auditorium with surges of sound, and of course it’s exactly the kind of music for which this hall was built. Bĕlohlávek is a conductor who has the orchestra exactly where he wants them, and the players revelled in this music as much as most of the audience did.

A bold beginning to the season, appropriately including music by two composers whose centenary is celebrated this year, performed with absolute commitment by the finest soloists in their fields. What more could you ask for? Well, just one or two tiny things concerning the audience. Both the Oboe Concerto and the Four Last Songs suffered from intrusive applause between movements, and I was unfortunate to be seated in front of chatterers of truly American rudeness, except for the fact that instead of discussing the relative merits of proctologists from Milwaukee, these two were bickering in French as though they were seated at a café table. The gentleman seated in front of me kept turning to glare at them, and he and I participated in a typically British, too-polite-to-say-anything little dance, but they did not desist until they were firmly shut up by a braver soul.

A suggestion – the Barbican now provides free programmes, but the Proms’ ones are still being sold for £2.50; perhaps if everyone had a programme they would know how long the works are, and maybe a polite reminder could be included along the lines of ‘It is customary to listen to musical works in silence, and to refrain from applause until the final note has sounded.’ After all, the present programme is so stuffed with advertisements – there are some eleven for private schools alone – that it should be possible to give it away. You never know, such a gesture might prevent one or two ‘orrible murders!

Melanie Eskenazi


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