There are festivals, then there are Festivals.
The BBC Proms, which comprises more than 90 events presented nightly for two months here beginning in mid-July, is larger in size, scope and demographic impact than any other classical music festival of its kind in the world.
Idle flackery? Not on your life.
The summer concert series — formally known as the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC — dates from 1895, when Britain still ruled the waves. It retains a sovereign hold on the affections of the many thousands of listeners who pack the gargantuan (5,272 seats) Victorian wedding cake that is the Royal Albert Hall (and other venues around London), and the hundreds of thousands more who tune in the Proms via radio, TV and the internet.
Today’s BBC Proms bestrides tradition and modernity. Tradition is represented by the season-ending, audience-participatory brew of light classics and British patriotic music called the Last Night at the Proms. But the venerable institution also is wooing younger listeners by including jazz and popular music in the mix and taking events beyond the traditional venues, including a parking garage where minimalist master Steve Reich is to be honored on his 80th birthday.
This year’s smart, eclectic programming includes a generous array of new works (many of them BBC commissions), anniversary celebrations (Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, Alberto Ginastera and David Bowie all are commemorated this year) and major orchestras (the Berlin Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden and Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestras are the German imports), along with the various London and BBC orchestras.
What strikes me each time I pay a visit to the Proms is how different the audiences are from those that frequent classical concerts anywhere else. You won’t find a more dedicated cohort of classical buffs than the so-called Prommers, who pay as little as 6 pounds (about $7.85) for standing-room space on the arena and gallery levels of the Albert Hall. These mostly British listeners range from young adults to seniors, and their vocal enthusiasm for the music and the performers creates a special symbiosis with the latter.
So it was in the course of the six Proms concerts I caught at the Albert Hall in late August. These events brought opportunities to hear ensembles and performers that appear infrequently, or not at all, in Chicago, along with fresh combinations of new and old music.
All concerts were broadcast live on BBC Radio 3, which airs the entire season and also streams events at its Proms website. Three of the programs I heard also were televised. Imagine anything comparable taking place in the U.S.
My Proms look-in included Russian music played by Russian and other performers, Brazilian music given in honor of the 2016 Rio Olympics, several cello concertos and a handful of world and U.K. premieres. Everything was realized at a high level, remarkably so given the sheer number of musicians who lay claim to the Albert Hall stage from night to night.
Among the new music events, German composer Matthias Pintscher conducted the BBC Scottish Symphony in his own “Reflections on Narcissus” (2004-05), with the wondrous cellist Alisa Weilerstein attacking the post-Bergian lyricism and “insanely inflamed” gestures (Pintscher’s description) in a white heat of virtuosic intensity.
The same orchestra under Ilan Volkov also gave the British premiere of the late French composer Gerard Grisey’s 1973-74 “Derives,” for large and small ensembles. The music held the ear on alert with its soft, frozen sonic landscapes shattered by upheaval and silences. Emily Howard’s “Torus (Concerto for Orchestra),” a world premiere, adhered to much the same game plan but the musical ideas, as set forth by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko, were not nearly as interesting as Grisey’s.
Brazilian composer Marlos Nobre’s 2003-04 “Kabbalah,” played by the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra led by Marin Alsop, sent bursts of Latin American rhythmic exhilaration bouncing about the cavernous auditorium. A Proms favorite, Alsop kept the Brazilian beat going with a smidgen of Villa-Lobos and encores that ushered in a late-night jazz jam by her and members of her orchestra.
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Music by Rachmaninov anchored programs on three consecutive evenings — “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” (pianist Stephen Hough in glittering form with the BBC Symphony under Alexander Vedernikov), “Symphonic Dances” (under Alsop) and Symphony No. 3 (Petrenko). Two other 20th century Russian masters also were heard from — Prokofiev with his Symphony No. 3, Shostakovich with his Cello Concerto No. 1.
Prokofiev’s seldom-heard Third Symphony, a bubbling stew of recycled themes from his demonic opera “The Fiery Angel,” drew a tremendously exciting account, and so did the Rachmaninov Third. The young Russian cellist Alexey Stadler scored a triumph of his own as last-minute substitute for the indisposed Truls Mork in the Shostakovich concerto.
Another soloist, the charismatic Venezuelan pianist Gabriela Montero, was not nearly as individual in the Grieg Piano Concerto as she was playing one of her signature improvisations, a delightful Bach-meets-boogie-woogie fantasy on that beloved Proms staple, Elgar’s “Land of Hope and Glory.”
Of the season’s several bows to the Shakespeare year, I caught Pintscher’s performance of the complete Mendelssohn incidental music to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” in a delightful, semistaged concert performance with actors, singers and chorus, based on a most effective precis of the play as prepared by former Chicago Symphony Orchestra creative director Gerard McBurney.
And then there was Mozart. If pressed to cite my special favorites of the week, I’d have to choose the performances of two unfinished Mozart choral masterpieces, the Mass in C minor and Requiem in D minor. The Mass was heard in Helmut Eder’s reconstruction, edited by Monika Hall and Karl-Heinz Kohler; the Requiem, in the familiar Franz Sussmayr completion.
Despite variable solo quartets, each piece carried a palpably devout inwardness of expression, in readings led by Volkov and Ivan Fischer, respectively. Fischer had the inspired idea of interspersing his soloists and chorus (Belgium’s superb Collegium Vocale Gent) with a chamber orchestra version of his Budapest Festival Orchestra. The result was a Requiem of pristine clarity, homogeneity and intimacy. A smooth and refined reading of another late Mozart work, the Clarinet Concerto, with clarinet soloist Akos Acs, completed the program.
In all, a deeply satisfying way in which to wrap up a week of high musical adventure, Proms style.
The 2016 BBC Proms season continues through Sept. 10; www.bbc.co.uk/proms.
Sharps and flats
— The Lincolnwood Chamber Orchestra under Philip Simmons will perform works by Chopin, Moszkowski, Lutoslawski and other Polish composers at Taste of Polonia, 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Copernicus Center, 5216 W. Lawrence Ave. Admission is $5; children 12 and under are admitted free; www.americanmusicfestivals.com.
— Conductor Jaap van Zweden, music director designate of the New York Philharmonic, will be the guest at the “Fall in Love with Music” benefit event of the League of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, 11 a.m. Nov. 12 at the Casino, 195 E. Delaware Place. Along with a conversation with Van Zweden, the program will include a performance by the CSO horn section. For tickets and further information, call 312-294-3000 or go to www.cso.org/fallinlovewith music.
John von Rhein is a Tribune critic.
Twitter @jvonrhein
MORE FROM JOHN VON RHEIN:
Pianist Jonathan Biss hopes to ‘open a window on Beethoven’s soul’ at Ravinia
How the CSO’s top oboist overcame neurological disorder to play again
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