So I won't be going to one Prom I'd been really looking forward to: Chailly conducting the Leipzig Gewandhaus in Beethoven's Ninth. (Prom 75.)
Apparently he's broken his arm. Like, I suspect, many others, I'm not much enthused by the prospect of the NY Phil's Alan Gilbert conducting. I realise the near-impossibility of replacing a conductor like Chailly at just a few weeks' notice, but . . .
Of course, Gilbert may surprise us . . .
One does wonder, though, if the 'tradition' of playing Beethoven's Ninth late every season is really worth keeping up? I've not heard many that outstanding since Tennstedt's extraordinarily moving Proms Ninth, and that was . . .could it really have been 1990?
(It's a bit late, now, but, Maestro Chailly, take it from one who knows: if you're going to fall, try to break the fall with your left arm. Or start practising 'pratfalls'—any drama student will demonstrate—to break your fall without breaking anything else.)
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