Add first night post

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+---
+title: "First Night of the Proms"
+description: ""
+publishDate: "2024-07-19"
+tags: ["bbc-proms"]
+---
+
+## Programme
+
+**18:30, 19 July 2024, Royal Albert Hall**
+
+Sophie Bevan soprano<br />
+Isata Kanneh-Mason piano<br />
+BBC Singers<br />
+BBC Symphony Chorus<br />
+BBC Symphony Orchestra<br />
+Elim Chan conductor
+
+- Handel: Music for the Royal Fireworks, Overture
+- Bruckner: Psalm 150
+- C Schumann: Piano Concerto
+- Ben Nobuto: Hallelujah Sim.
+- Beethoven: Symphony No. 5
+
+https://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ejc2rz
+
+## My thoughts
+
+Being able to attend (more of) the Proms was one of the things I've definitely been looking forward to since moving to London.
+Although I wasn't particularly thrilled by this programme, I decided to go, because why not?
+After all, it's only £8 and it's on the way back home from work.
+
+I almost regretted this slightly impulsive decision, because I'm still a little bit jet lagged from an overseas trip (I got back on the 17th night).
+I've played in the orchestra before for the Schumann concerto and although there was absolutely nothing wrong with Isata Kanneh-Mason's playing, I can't say it's my favourite piece: I find the interplay between the piano and the orchestra to be rather brusque.
+(It's of course worth pointing out that she wrote it at the age of 14.)
+
+With that said, the music-making overall was excellent: Elim Chan's Beethoven 5 flowed along beautifully, with just enough space between successive phrases to not make it sound muddy.
+The BBCSO did admirably well in keeping up with the rather rapid tempi chosen.
+The only thing I would have liked more in the Beethoven was the insistence of the four-note motif in the third movement—I felt the intensity of the two middle notes tended to drop.
+
+The one piece that made me _not_ regret going for this, though, was the one I was least expecting: Ben Nobuto's world premiere, *Hallelujah Sim.* for choir, orchestra, and electronics.
+As [the composer says in an interview](https://www.classical-music.com/features/composers/ben-nobuto):
+
+> I like the idea of applying structures from videogames or films, narrative ideas, onto the music. So in Hallelujah Sim there’s a voice in the electronics part, sort of like a narrator, telling the chorus to do certain things, like stages of a videogame [...]
+
+Which videogame are we talking about here?
+There's a recording of it on YouTube (and you can also find the full video on iPlayer), and anybody who has played Portal before will no doubt immediately recognise the similarity to Ellen McLain's GLaDOS:
+
+<iframe width="100%" height="340" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xbI5p2cxmJA?si=IoSGK5YCl7wO4oRD" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
+
+The unpredictability of the piece kept everybody on their toes, so I can only imagine what it must have been like to perform it: yet, this was executed with incredible dexterity from conductor, orchestra, and choir alike.
+
+I don't know how well this piece works outside of this context: the music essentially remixes the Bruckner which was played before the interval and no doubt some degree of the humour derives from this self-referential character.
+I'm not totally sure, for example, that I would go and listen to a recording of it again.
+
+But for ten good minutes on this night I actually managed to stop thinking about other things and simply listen to what was coming next, which is quite a rare thing when I'm at a concert.
+On a day where I was tired from jet lag plus a long day at the office, and also anxious about a number of other things (I'm perpetually anxious), this was a much-needed boost to my mood.
+And isn't that the whole point of live music?
+If I just wanted to listen to a familiar recording, I'd do that at home.
+
+Anyway, here's to a good Proms season!