It's that time of the year when the BBC Proms come to a close. Which is a pity, as I don't seem to have really got into it this year. I suppose there was the Olympics, and the holiday, and the light summer evenings beckoning me outside, and the cat complaining of whatever she felt was worth bringing to my attention; all of which distracts you from sitting down in front of the radio for several hours and listening patiently to a concert. It is such an investment in time. It is little use telling me that every concert is available all week on iPlayer, as there is little prospect of me ever being able to catch up, at least in my current lifetime. Perhaps someone should invent a Twitter-like service which sends you the best bits of each concert in bite-size pieces: 10 seconds here and there, perhaps enough to get the big tune without all the introductions and developments and recapitulations and the like. It sounds shallow, I know, but one must move with the times. Mahler would have understood. And perhaps would have churned out a few shorter symphonies in response.
From the few concerts I got to hear, a few highlights were Gilbert & Sullivan's Yeoman of the Guard and John Adams's Nixon in China - so similar, and yet, in many subtle ways, so different too.
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