Proms promise

On first opening a new Proms prospectus, the enthusiastic amateur immediately looks for the things that are there, the things that are not there and, a mixture of the two, the things he hopes will be there. What I hope for every year goes roughly like this: the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics (yes to both); a big operatic production (two this time, one each from the Royal Opera and ENO); one or two Really Famous (and preferably Really Old) artists (Barenboim, Boulez, Dutoit, Gergiev, Haitink, Perahia); some big anniversaries to be celebrated (Debussy, Delius, Cage, Knussen and Goehr — a middling crop); symphonies by Bruckner and Mahler (three each); some top early music (very little); Saint-Saëns’s Third Symphony (no).

Once these preliminaries have been rather breathlessly undertaken, the mood lightens and our inspector begins to winkle out the strands that will hold the annual colossus together. In the not-too-distant past, these were as cleverly interwoven as the countersubjects in a Bach fugue; nowadays they are fewer, easier to pick out and more attached to the excitements of the day, which, this summer, are exceptional. The Proms will miss the actual celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee, though there are several echoes of it: the first night will include Elgar’s ‘Coronation Ode’; and the Master of the Queen’s Music, Peter Maxwell Davies, has been commissioned to write his ninth symphony, which is dedicated to the Queen.

The Olympics, however, do take place during the Proms season, giving the planners some unusual opportunities. On the evening of 27 July, the day the Olympics open, teams of young people will perform Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with its hymn to universal brotherhood. And this emphasis on youth is perhaps the backbone of the Proms more generally.