Just listening to the Proms concert tonight, the highlight of which, for me, is the Walton violin concerto, played by Midori with the CBSO under Andris Nelsons. It is a piece that is never played as often as it deserves and I do not know it very well, certainly not as well as his viola concerto, and it is a great performance of a great bit of music.
Two of the other main pieces in tonight's Prom are by Richard Strauss: the tone poem Don Juan and the Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome. I have to admit to having a bit of a problem with Strauss's tone poems, despite liking his operas and especially the Four Last Songs. The problem that I have with them is the same one that I have with the novels and short stories of Franz Kafka and that is that they have absolutely fantastic openings, but the rest of them just doesn't live up to the expectations these openings arouse. Think of the beginning of Also Sprach Zarathustra or Till Eulenspiegel, then try to hum another part of either. Then recall the first sentences of Metamorphosis or The Trial and try and come up with another memorable quote from either.
Yet another brilliant Prom from what is shaping up to be a superb season.
The final piece is Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky, a cantata arranged from the music he composed for Eisenstein's film of the same name. I have a real weakness for Russian composers, so I am also looking forward to this one.
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