Reviews

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Classical Midnight in Kensington (26 Jul 2006)

Forget, if you can, all those traditional images of the Proms. No other musical series in the world can match the rapt atmosphere of the late-night concerts in the Albert Hall, and none boasts better statistics: where else would 2,000-plus people sit past midnight on a hot summer's evening listening intently to a programme of sacred music written four centuries ago? Such was the scene at John Eliot Gardiner's recent Prom, a specially devised programme entitled 'The Great Venetians' that confirmed again that this late-night slot - in which contemporary music also works notably well - is one of the unique glories of the Proms.

In front of a much bigger crowd than even many mainstream Proms attract, Gardiner (right) attempted to recreate in the Albert Hall the sound of St Mark's, Venice. And indeed South Kensington's big top has all the cavernous space needed for the contrasting and echoing groups of singers and players that characterised the Venetian tradition of cori spezzati (separated choirs).

Moving around the stage and various points in the arena, the Monteverdi Choir, English Baroque Soloists and His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts delivered an almost seamless sequence of music ranging from Giovanni Gabrieli's Plaudite, psallite of 1597 to Francesco Cavalli's Salve Regina of 1656.

The Cavalli, a plaintive hymn full of the composer's trademark sensuality, brought out the best in the singers and players. Elsewhere, some instrumental intonation had drooped a little in the heat, but still Gardiner drew stirring performances. Threaded throughout the programme was Monteverdi's Mass of 1650, whose choral lines folded into each other with hypnotic intensity. Around midnight, the inclusion of music by the somewhat generic Giovanni Antonio Rigatti began to seem a bad idea, but there was compensation in the chamber-music-like delicacy of works by Alessandro Grandi. Giovanni Gabrieli's Dulcis Jesu made a grand finale, in which rolling waves of sound built up majestically.

John Alison