Prom 36, McGill, BBCSSO, New review - summery Shakespearean mummery

My three Proms so far this year have all featured regional BBC orchestras conducted by women, all excellent, and it surely reflects well on the Proms management that they have done so much to address this gender imbalance in recent years. In last night’s Prom 36 the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra were led by the New Zealander Gemma New, who navigated a programme of Mozart, Mendelssohn and Bonis with élan, good humour and a gorgeous black frock coat.

Before doing my research, the name Mel Bonis would have suggested an Australian Olympic athlete, or Californian surf champion, but she was in fact a late 19^th century French composer, who used “Mel” as opposed to “Mélanie” to disguise her femaleness. Her Salomé, a short orchestral portrait expanded from a solo piano original, was mercurial, in places sensuous, in others dramatic and urgent. It made for an enjoyable opener, but didn’t especially leave me desperate to investigate any more of her large oeuvre.Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto was more familiar terrain, played here by Anthony McGill (pictured above by Mark Allan), currently Principal Clarinet with the New York Philharmonic. The outer movements were taken fast, bordering on too fast: there were moments when his runs got to their end a bit ahead of themselves. But it was exciting, and McGill’s legato was as rich and smooth as the chocolate river in Willy Wonka’s factory. I had feared it was not an ideal Albert Hall choice, but McGill, unafraid to explore very quiet dynamics, took the orchestra and the audience with him when he did, and these were the most engrossing moments. The gorgeous second movement was played humbly, intimately and, for me, very movingly.The orchestra, model accompanists in the Mozart, were able to come to the fore in Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Here they were joined by the upper voices of the National Youth Choir of Scotland and a pair of actors (Moyo Akandé and Ewan Black, pictured above), who garlanded the music with extracts from the Shakespeare. There was costume and a semi-staging, focusing on the magical element of the play, specifically the characters of Oberon and Titania. The choir had only two items to sing – and the lullaby “You spotted snakes with double tongue” was probably the highlight of the night – but they were an acting ensemble throughout, from their entry in shorts and summer dresses, to their donning of donkey ears, to the triumphant celebration of the “Wedding March”.

The actors, popping up in different costumes and in different parts of the hall, were good in their declamation, Moyo Akandé a very commanding presence as the Queen of the Fairies. Their dialogue dovetailed nicely with the Mendelssohn underscore where that was necessary, but stage director Victoria Newlyn mostly kept them out of the way. There were times I’d rather have just listened to the music, but the Proms is a time to try something a bit more ambitious than the run-of-the-mill, so there’s no criticism from me on that count.But of the music, the Overture was brilliant, written – almost unbelievably – when the composer was 17. The scoring is so innovative, from skittering fairy strings to warm wind chorales and the ever-present, fruity, tuba (Andrew Duncan). Gemma New (pictured above) shaped all the music with her expressive hands, gestures always going upwards as the music floated up into the hall. Sopranos Emily Kemp and Beth Stirling were light and frothy in the lullaby, Lauren Reeve-Rawlings supplied a lovely horn solo in the “Nocturne”, and the trumpets enjoyed the “Wedding March”, as they should. It was all very magical.

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• BBC Proms 2024 runs until 14 September 
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