Welsh National Opera hit the heights with Britten – only to be brought low by funding cuts, Barenboim returned to the Proms and Edinburgh’s Usher Hall radiated with sheer ferocious energy in a spectacular year of live music
Late-summer nights at the BBC Proms this year found two orchestras showing me new things about great works that I thought I knew pretty much inside out. The Aurora Orchestra’s recent Proms have been reliably fascinating and musically rewarding, so I had high hopes for their dramatised exploration of Beethoven’s Ninth – but I still wasn’t expecting to be so touched by their portrait of the composer, presenting the genius of his inspiration alongside the mundanities and frustrations of his daily life. The performance itself, bolstered by the voices of the National Youth Choir, reminded me why the last movement is called the Ode to Joy. Then more joy a fortnight later, when Klaus Mäkelä conducted the Orchestre de Paris in an evening of Debussy, Stravinsky and Berlioz, with an electrifying performance of Petrushka at its centre. Something just clicked: Mäkelä had us all hanging on every note within seconds, and the orchestra played like a team of all-stars.
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