Errollyn Wallen [Ben Ramsden]
IF you want the statistics, it’s eight weeks, 86 concerts, with over 3,000 musicians taking part. I’m talking about the Proms, which start their new season July 18. And the details are engraved on my mind by Radio 3, which has been plugging them with the determination of a doorstep salesman over the past month.
The sell is so relentless it’s a turn-off. But try not to let this rattle you, because when Radio 3 proclaims (10 times an hour) that the Proms are the Greatest Classical Music Festival in the World, it speaks a truth. And this year, as ever, there are things you won’t want to miss – many of them connected with the big music anniversaries of 2025 (Ravel, Shostakovich, Boulez, Arvo Pärt) alongside premieres from young composers like Mark Simpson and Anna Thorvaldsdottir.
A new piece by Master of the King’s Music Errollyn Wallen features on the First Night, July 18, accompanying Vaughan Williams’ magnificent (and all too rarely heard) oratorio on texts from the Book of Revelation, Sancta Civitas.
Lunchtime July 20 brings baroque violin concertos played by the young French star with a name to live up to, Teotime Langlois de Swart. And in the evening there’s Ravel’s Left Hand Piano Concerto – a piece originally written in the early 1930s for a pianist who lost his right hand in the First World War, played here by a pianist who’s had no right hand from birth but still managed to make a notable career, Nicholas McCarthy.
July 21 has a substantial new work by Tom Coult called Monologues for the Curious, based on ghost stories by MR James. And next day, July 22, it’s the Mark Simpson premiere: a guitar concerto called ZEBRA, inspired by the sci-fi fantasy world of Philip K Dick and played (on an electric instrument, so you should actually hear it above the full force of an orchestra) by Sean Shibe – a classical virtuoso whose conversion to electric instruments raised eyebrows to start with but now pulls audiences.
On July 23 the Proms go French, with an early evening concert by the Orchestre National de France (Ravel and Chausson) followed by late-night Boulez from the formidable Ensemble Intercontemporain. And July 24 revives an old favourite, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, played by a youngish master, Augustin Handelich.
All these concerts run at the Albert Hall but can be heard in the (probably greater) comfort of your own home on BBC Radio 3 if you can bear the slogans and self-advertising. Some of them get televised, including the First Night on BBC 2. And this year is a pretty good one for TV coverage, with 21 events on the box. Full details: bbc.co.uk/proms
• It isn’t easy, running up against the competition of the Proms. But brave souls do it. And among them is Opera Holland Park which has a new production of Donizetti’s gothic-horror tale of thwarted love and suicide, Lucia di Lammermoor, playing July 18- August 1. Rising conductor Michael Papadopoulos takes the baton. And opening the very next night is a new Traviata that plays July 19-August 2. operahollandpark.com
• Meanwhile, Kings Place hosts a weekend International Guitar Festival, July 18-20, with established classical stars like David Russell and promising newcomers like young Portuguese guitarist Goncalo Maia Caetano. kingsplace.co.uk