Proms Watch #1: Opening night Having waxed lyrical about Wimbledon, here’s another of my favourite events of this time of year: The Proms. Does anyone follow, or go to this? I really should have watched the opening night on BBC2 on Friday. It was a choice of that or Stargate SG-1. The latter won. I shall settle for watching on the BBC iplayer, mainly to see Stephen Hough take out Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, a fiendishly difficult piece of music. The 18th variation is the most familiar variation. Is there a more understated ending to any piece of classical music? My favourite bit is the 19th variation to the end. It reminds me a bit of one of those tropical storms. A dark cloud appears overhead. Drops of rain start to fall; very few at first but more and more. Then the storm arrives and the rain falls harder and harder. The ferocity of the rain peaks, eases up quickly and suddenly disappears and the storm is over.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 10:57:13 +0000
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