The Proms

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Opening with Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, Boulez immediately provided proof of his renowned aural meticulousness, so shaping and weighting the elegantly chromatic, asymmetric lines of the opening fugue that they floated on their way with total freedom while never blurring the exquisitely conceived harmony. Perhaps there is more of visionary dream here than of practical reality, yet the Royal Albert Hall, which sometimes seems to encompass some huge outdoor space, provides the perfect environment for the work, and on this occasion Boulez's taut control of its static columns of sound allowed them to vibrate with overwhelming splendour. This provided one of the highlights of the concert, with warmly sonorous playing by the orchestra's wind and brass choirs, but no less impressive was a marvellously poised account of Debussy's Jeux, that breathtakingly intricate masterpiece which, after decades of neglect and devaluation, was resurrected by Boulez and the post-war avant garde as pointing the way to new structural thinking. Next came a rare opportunity to hear Debussy's magically re-creative orchestrations of his songs, Trois Ballades de Villon and Le Jet d'eau, and they were followed by a scintillatingly textured Le Soleil des eaux, music of sensuous appeal and challenging vigour, to which the BBC Singers contributed memorably - altogether an evening to cherish.