Everything in this concert was beautifully played. First we had a warm, intelligent account of Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with Pavel Kolesnikov at the piano. Each and every one of the 24 variations was spelled out with sensitive attention to all those different styles especially in the pizzicato variation and the frenetic finale.

Then, eventually, we got magnificent performance of Firebird with every nuance lovingly leaned on. Because this is Aurora Orchestra (founded by Nicholas Collon in 2005) most of the players stood up for both works and the Stravinsky was played from memory which meant that players maintained continuous eye contact with the conductor and each other and that introduces a very unusual level of cohesion. Of course this is a narrative piece – it’s ballet music after all – and I have rarely heard the story telling so clear or so well articulated. The moment in this performance when the horn breaks in with that final haunting hymn-like tune will stay with me for a long time because Collon made it grow from the previous pianissimo passage like a flower bursting into bloom. The low level attempt at “staging” by altering the lighting, added nothing though. There was enough drama in the music. It needed no highlighting.

Having said all that though there were problems – at least as far I was concerned. The concert was introduced by Tom Service on stage. Now although I listen regularly to his informative Radio 3 programme The Listening Service and admire his fluent, knowledgeable enthusiasm, I don’t need Mr Service to tell me what I’m going to hear or to whip up applause with arm gestures like a pantomime character. I go to concerts for the music and really don’t care for any sort of chat in that context.

Moreover, In the middle of this concert we got a 20 minute musicology/music appreciation lesson – the sort of thing I associate with concerts for young audiences. It was well enough done in its way although I don’t relish being asked to hum. Service and Collon are an effective double act and Collon talked about Stravinsky’s use of intervals, illustrated by Aurora players quite interestingly. Orchestra members even sang a couple of songs which are part of the source material for Firebird. But you can get this sort of thing on the radio if you want it. In a concert hall I want music and in this case I would much preferred to have heard an extra work.

I also found myself irritated that in a concert billed as “no interval” audience members had to talk among themselves for 10 minutes while music stands and piano were taken off stage and various other bits of stage management were attended to. Several people, puzzled, tried to slip out and were turned back by staff.

It was, however, a good idea to run this concert twice. I attended the afternoon performance as part of a good sized audience. It was the later, evening performance which went out live on Radio 3.

Susan Elkin

Reshaping was the theme of this concert: Ralph Vaughan Williams reinventing Thomas Tallis, Respighi constructing a concerto based on plainchant and Mendelssohn responding to the Reformation, complete with protestant chorale. And it was noteworthy for another reason: Vasily Petrenko is RPO’s new Principal Conductor and this was his first concert in that role although he has, of course, conducted RPO many times before.

The opening Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis was glorious. The Royal Albert Hall acoustic and the distancing of the nine piece chamber orchestra on a higher level at the back ensured that every note and cadence sang with all the required wistful poignance. The musical rapport between them, the main orchestra and the string quartet at its heart ensured that we heard nuances that no recording ever captures.

Ottorino Respighi’s 1921 Concerto Gregoriano was new to me – and I expect to most of the audience. It gets few outings and this was its first performance at the Proms. It was also a Proms debut for diminutive Japanese violinist Sayaka Shoji who is 38 but looks two decades younger. It’s a substantial, ambitious work, often modal and inspired by Gregorian chant. Maybe Respighi tried to pack too much in because it feels pretty indigestible. Perhaps he should have taken the reshaping even further and made it into two concerti. Nonetheless Shoji seemed to play it with aplomb although I have no other performances to compare it with. I liked her beautiful sostenuto double stopping in the Andante and the intriguing passages in the finale when violin and timpani were centre stage (put me in mind of the much later Patricia Kopatchinskaja cadenza for the Beethoven concerto) and another nice bit with horns.

Mendelssohn’s D major symphony, ‘Reformation’ has never quite achieved the popularity of his earlier ones which is a pity because there are some splendid things in it – although it is arguably the most disjointed of Mendelssohn’s first five symphonies. Under Petrenko’s strange, fluid (is he double jointed?), octopus-like finger waving control the chorale ‘Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott’ was a delight and principal flautist Emer McDonough certainly deserved the applause Petrenko directed her way at the end. There was pleasing lightness from the woodwind in the Allegro vivace and admirable clarity and cohesion from the strings in the Andante. We got a deal of warmth and excitement too partly because of Petrenko’s ability to create – almost choreograph – the quietest possible piano and pianissimo passages.

Susan Elkin

Very much a concert for discerning grown ups, this event presented Mozart’s last three symphonies as a triptych. It was imaginative programming which certainly highlighted new aspects of three very familiar 1788 works as well as linking them together – a journey, as it were, all the way from the Haydnesque slow E flat major introduction in number 39 to the glorious fugue which ends number 41.

Maxim Emelyanychev, principal conductor of SCO since 2019, is a flamboyantly balletic conductor, sweeping and crouching to coax the sound he wants: much more Gustavo Dudamel than Adrian Boult. Often he gestures the rhythm rather than beating time. Mostly it works although there were several ragged openings and one or two places when the orchestra simply wasn’t together. Having to seat distanced in deference to Covid probably doesn’t help with this although positioning horns, double basses, trumpets and tympani spaced on a higher tier at the back ensured that lots of detail came through. And it’s always good to see and hear second violins placed opposite firsts rather than buried in the heart of the orchestra. It enhances clarity.

I especially liked the wind work in the trio section of no 39 and the delightful decoration in the repeat. The horn interjections in the allegro, which usually go unnoticed, were rather nice too.

The highlight of the concert was its centre piece – no 40 in its navy blue G minor, packed here with plenty of edgy angst. I admired the circularity of Emelyanychev’s andante in which each wind solo grew seamlessly out of the one before and he gave us a strong, crisp allegro with sparkily dramatic general pauses.

And so to the grandeur of the C Major “Jupiter”, no 41 in which the recapitulation in the allegro sounded bright and fresh as did the arrestingly done development section. Emelyanychev gave us sensitive sweetness and some idyllic piano passages in the andante and really ran with the opening filigree texture in the final movement before the excitement of the fugue in which ideas are batted round the orchestra.

It was a thoughtful and enjoyable concert and, like everyone else, after a two year gap I was moved and thrilled to be back in the Royal Albert Hall with that unique Proms atmosphere.

Susan Elkin

The lovely big playing space in this lightest, airiest of venues so elegantly (operatically) sited in the leafy undulations of the green and gorgeous Wormsley estate, is quite a setting for a youth opera. And every single one of the 75 young cast members does it justice. So does the team of young stage managers and the young designers who helped find ways of bringing this piece to stage.

This show was originally planned for 2020 but we all know what happened then. In the event it’s a very poignant story for now. The eponymous giant throws the children out of his garden so that they have nowhere to play. Eventually – it’s a one hour piece – he comes to think otherwise and human mixing is restored.

How do you depict a giant on stage convincingly in a fairly simple production? You find a portly singer/actor – Matthew Stiff – with a resonant bass voice, dress him (initially) in black with a flapping raincoat and give him a larger than lifesize model head on a pole to hold – and it’s neatly effective. One of two professional singers in this show, he brings real warmth to the role as his character gradually learns and changes. The other professional is Barbara Cole Walton who plays a linnet, holding a model bird and singing mostly from the top of a ladder. She is gently, smilingly avian and her top notes are quite something.

The other lead is a child – talented Barnaby Scholes – who confronts the giant and looks very effective next to him because he’s small. Barnaby sings treble poignantly. Ultimately his character turns out to be stronger in spirit than body although he achieves his aim. That blend of feistiness and fragility is well captured

But the real high spots in this show are the choruses in which it’s good to see so many boys and an accomplished group of over-18s who sing a couple of choral numbers.

Jessica Duchen’s libretto is clear and unfussy (“The garden looks marvellous. I couldn’t do this alone”) and John Barber’s music is highly evocative. Words and music complement each other. Scored for a small group and played by a six-piece band drawn from the Philharmonia and conducted by Jack Ridley, every note conveys a message. I especially liked the scoring for a winter dance sequence with tinkly discords, faintly reminiscent of Britten, followed by a minor key passage and lots of tambourine.

The whole show, under Karen Gillingham’s practised directorship, is actually a bit of a miracle. Young people have had to audition and rehearse digitally for much of the time with masks and distancing requirements even when they finally got together. The over eighteens didn’t meet each other or the rest of the cast until 5 days before the show. Twenty four hours before curtain up the accordionist was “pinged” so the part had to be rewritten for keyboard tight against the clock.

One always hopes that these enterprising Garsington youth and community operas will live on especially as this one got only a single performance at Wormsley. The good news is that The Selfish Giant, which was co-produced by Opera North, will be staged at Leeds next year.

Susan Elkin