Audience participation at the Proms comes in more meaningful forms than the jingoistic flag-waving of the last night. Before the New London Chamber Choir's late-night performance of Iannis Xenakis's Idmen A & B, David Lawrence coached the Albert Hall audience, preparing us for a series of mysterious hisses and "Ha!"s in two of Idmen's movements. Combined with the choral voices and the six percussionists of the Hungarian percussion group Amadinda, the effect was of a weird, nocturnal scene, as if the audience had transformed into a swarm of exotic insects. The whole sequence of six movements in Idmen juxtaposed sounds of vocal strangeness, such as glissandos and microtonal clusters, with the percussive energy of Amadinda. Conductor James Wood coaxed a vivid directness from the New London Chamber Choir, and Lawrence's mime-like gestures inspired the audience's performance.
The programme's world premiere was Wood's own Tongues of Fire, given what must have been one of the latest performances in the entire history of the Proms. Thanks to some truly epic stage management, the performance did not start until almost midnight, after the concert was originally scheduled to finish. Composed for large choir and a quartet of percussionists (the virtuosic Amadindas again), the piece is a multifaceted reflection of the Pentecost, created through texts, liturgies and musical traditions drawn from all over the world, from Jamaica to New Zealand. The piece creates a textural kaleidoscope, from minimalist riffs to spectralist swoops and slides. At the centre of the soundworld are four oil drums played by the percussionists - instruments that create a dazzling variety of resonances, and which inspire the richness of the rest of the piece. Despite its chaotic piling-up of musical material, Tongues of Fire speaks with clarity and immediacy, and the New London Chamber Choir delighted in its sonic diversity.
Clarity was unfortunately lacking in Alexander Lazarev's performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, in the earlier Prom. He created a grim march in the first movement, Shostakovich's famous depiction of the invading German forces, but in the finale, he managed only a shapeless interpretation, making the work's structure diffuse and overblown. But the orchestra were enthusiastic accompanists for pianist Nikolai Lugansky's machine-like precision in Prokofiev's First Piano Concerto.
