There are some crossings out in my diary, which might have led to the note:
?? Who came with me.
Again, lining up the usual suspects means Jilly, Annalisa and Bobbie. Again, the prime suspect is Bobbie. I think I had queried the name of my companion, because I thought I had crossed out the word “Bobs?”. But my now more sophisticated forensics (use of a magnifying glass) tells me that I crossed out the word “Box?” instead.
Whether or not we sat in a box for this one is another part of the mystery. I do recall occasionally grabbing a brace of box seats back then, although I did soon settle for preferring frontish stalls for Proms concerts.
Anyway…
…this one was a good, solid concert as I recall. We heard:
- Carl Nielsen – Overture ‘Helios’
- Sergey Rachmaninov – Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor
- Jean Sibelius – Symphony No. 2 in D major
Stephen Hough tinkling the ivories, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Davis doing the rest.
If you don’t know what the Helios overture looks and sounds like, dig this version by the Danish National Orchestra:
Malcolm Hayes in The Telegraph spent about 60% of his word allocation slagging off perceived compositional flaws in Nielsen’s little Helios piece, while praising to the hilt the evening’s performances of monumental Rachmaninov and Sibelius pieces, which comprised some 85% of the concert. A wasted opportunity to write an incisive review of the Prom by Mr Hayes, in my view.
Hough Prom Telegraph Hayes 06 Aug 1990, Mon The Daily Telegraph (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com