The real review will come along a little later, after I've rendered my notes into some kind of intelligibility.
I had wondered a little if we absolutely needed another Brahms Piano Concerto or another Glagolitic Mass at the Proms, but over the years, Gergiev at the Proms with the LSO has never disappointed, and he didn't tonight.
(I say 'never', though just a—very—few times I've thought he might not have challenged, or provoked, might sometimes be a better word, the audience as much as he might, or often has.)
But neither the Brahms nor, especially and outstandingly, the Janacek, could have been construed as being unchallenging in the sense of thought-provoking. I don't think I have ever heard, and wonder if I may again, such a raw no-holds-barred Glagolitic Mass of such pure energy as I did in this Prom.
If you heard the interval talk, you would have learnt that Janacek, at what is now the X-box*/pizza-devouring age of 15, had joined a pilgrimage of 40,000 people. Who sang in the open air. Whether that did surface in some musical form fifty years later, we cannot tell. But hearing Gergiev, the Maryinsky soloists, the LSO and the LSO choir, it's hard to believe that a memory of it could not have been resonating round his skull like a great cathedral bell.
One brief technical note: the broadcast balance probably overdid the power of the soloists, maybe made them sound more vehement than strong; it put them forward of the orchestra, when, apparently, they were actually behind it, underneath Henry Wood's bust.
Even allowing for what I suspect is a little added mic enhancement of the audience in the Albert Hall this season, by the sound of it, the audience was just as enthusiastic as I am.
*Other games consoles are also available. Or so I am led to understand.
I'm sorry I couldn't go to hear it live; if you didn't hear it at all, you really must. It'll be repeated on Radio 3 tomorrow (Friday 25th at 1300).
iPlayer
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