BBC Proms.  BBC Concert Orchestra.  Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham. 8 September 2024.

5✩✩✩✩✩.  Review: William Ruff. 

“Proms Nottingham: a first for the city and a fizzing celebration of its music and heritage.”

This was the first time the BBC had ever staged one of the Proms concerts in Nottingham, so how were they going to do it?  Everyone knows what a Prom is like in the vast spaces of London’s Royal Albert Hall – but would something of the atmosphere be lost in the more intimate, high-definition surroundings of Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall?

Anyone listening to Sunday’s live broadcast at the RCH or on Radio 3 knows that the answer to that question is a very definite ‘no’.  Presenter Elizabeth Alker did a splendid job encouraging the audience to be even less inhibited than usual when it came to applause.  Not that she needed to: the Hall was full of people clearly keen to have a good time and to celebrate not only fine music-making but also some of the rich heritage for which Nottingham is famous around the world.

Part of this celebration was a special commission from the BBC for Nottingham University’s Dr Elizabeth Kelly.  Her Lace Machine Music has grown from her extensive knowledge of the city’s lace industry in general and of the machines on which it was manufactured in particular.  She has said that she was inspired by three features of the process: the highly rhythmic sound of the machines; the punched cards on which the patterns are encoded and the bells which sound as every batch is completed (plus a nod to Nottingham’s mighty Council House bell).  The music starts loudly, brass and percussion suggesting the huge scale of the machines and their noise – but then there is a magical moment half way through when harp and cellos take over and from iron, steel and noise emerges the intricate beauty of Nottingham lace.  It’s music which manages to pack an immediate punch – but whose detail deserves repeated listening.

A very different side to the city was celebrated in two pieces devoted to the world’s most famous outlaw.  There was Doreen Carwithen’s overture to the film The Men of Sherwood and a suite drawn from the music which Erich Korngold wrote for the Errol Flynn version of The Adventures of Robin Hood.  This is Technicolor music so bright that you almost need dark glasses to listen to it.  But the Sunday afternoon Proms audience was definitely in the mood for swashbuckling adventures, tender love between the hero and Maid Marian – and, of course, the inevitable victory of Robin over the evil Sherriff.  The BBC Concert Orchestra, under the highly energetic baton of Anna-Maria Helsing, cast caution aside and gave the music all they’d got.

The local theme continued in the person of pianist (and Nottingham native) Clare Hammond, one of the UK’s top soloists.  She joined the orchestra to perform Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, variations which encompass just about everything, from lyrical effusion to elegant wit.  In Clare’s hands the music was both crystal-clear and razor-sharp, producing a vivid range of pianistic colour and never stinting when it came to energy, vitality and variety.  And much the same can be said of Anna-Maria Helsing who brought out equally vivid colours from the orchestra.

The final work on the programme was Sibelius’s Symphony No 3.  It’s quite short and condensed, doesn’t wear its heart on its sleeve and can be quite elusive until you get to know it.  But it has much charm and the sort of emotional directness associated with folk music.  The finale is remarkable for the way in which Sibelius gradually builds energy and power.  Anna Maria Helsing’s handling of the final bars was magnificent: the music simply reaches a final blazing chord…and stops, as there’s nothing left to say.  Nevertheless, Sunday’s Nottingham Proms audience had plenty to cheer about.

Clare Hammond, piano BBC Concert Orchestra Anna-Maria Helsing, conductor

Concert on BBC Sounds for one month