Pick of the Proms

As I write I’m listening to the Monteverdi choir singing four Bach motets, thanks to the ever-wonderful Radio 3. Fantastic.

My promming is getting off to a slow start this year – work and holidays have kept me away from God’s own Royal Albert Hall (incidentally, did you know Tallis is at the foot of the Albert memorial? Neither did I.)

Here are my pick of the Proms – the concerts I’ll be trying to get to, and commend to you… spend £5 on a gallery ticket, and give it a whirl. Bring a cushion. I have had to leave out the lunchtime chamber music Proms, as no prospect of attending one this year, more’s the pity (though if I can squeeze one in it will be PCM 19)…

• 2 August – Prom 24: Includes Beethoven’s 4th symphony, and some top choirs – with the added bonus that I don’t know the Berlioz Te Deum at all. I might be tempted back the following night for Prom 25 too…
• …probably not, however, as I do want to get along to Prom 29 on 6 August, for some top Rossini
• 12 August – Prom 36: I adore The Sixteen, Handel’s Coronation Anthems make me want to curl up in a ball and make happy gurgling noises, so this may be my top Prom of 2009 – particularly as it (perhaps a little predictably) ends with Zadok – but then the Proms so often take you by surprise, so you never know…
• 15 August – Prom 40: Who can resist the BBC SO trotting through Beethoven’s 9th? The Albert Hall’s long acoustic makes the final movement feel really huge.
• 21 August – Prom 48: I’m a sucker for a bit of Wagner. So, even if (whisper it) I’m not overly wild about the Symphonie fantastique… well, it’s also Wagner, and it’s the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, who can make sentimental people cry at 50 paces. This is the one our office is going to. Fidelio is also very tempting.
• The OAE will be the stars on 25 August for Prom 53. I love the OAE, and the Handel choices in the programme. Second-favourite concert.
• Fianally, Prom 74 – it’s the Vienna Phil and Strauss. You’d be mad not to.

Something of a choral bent to my choices this year, but then that’s where my musical interests lie at the moment. Who knows, next year it might justbe Glastonbury. (Don’t count on it.)