Captivated by music’s magic spell
Ten Pieces Prom Royal Albert Hall
The BBC’S Ten Pieces music education project has been a roaring success, reaching 10,000 schools and four million people. The idea is brilliant in its simplicity; each year the BBC chooses 10 classical pieces that become the core part of education packs distributed to schools up and down the land.
The chosen pieces can be the basis of new compositions by the children, history lessons, dance classes… you name it. And each year the project is celebrated in a Prom presenting all 10 pieces, hosted by a children’s TV presenter.
Last night was the fourth such Prom, and from my ringside radio seat this time around, seemed as action-packed as previous years. The pieces ran the gamut from baroque sturdiness (Purcell as reimagined by Britten) to romantic fervour (Sibelius’s Finlandia) to chirpy, colourful modernism (in composer Mason Bates’s amusing take on Jorge Luis Borges’s imaginary bird, the A Bao a Qu).
They were linked as always by a narrative, deftly handled by Naomi Wilkinson, the CBBC presenter. This year it was the idea of casting musical spells to conjure forth the Firebird, the magical creature pictured in the last of the Ten Pieces. Several of these pieces also had a bird theme; so of course we needed bird-catcher Molly Finch (played by actress Josie Lawrence) to help cast the spells. And – in another manifestation of music’s magic – the black 18th-century composer Joseph Bologne, as impersonated by Paapa Essiedu, appeared in full 18th-century regalia to tell us about his colourful life as a fencer, violinist, composer and bodyguard to Louis XV – and to introduce his own 1st Symphony.
In between the banter, the Ten Pieces were performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under conductor Rafael Payare. They played with just as much verve and attention to detail as if the usual audience of grown-ups were in front of them, rather than several thousand remarkably quiet primary school-age children and their parents.
But as always the most striking things came from the children themselves. Elgar’s Enigma Variations received a makeover from some young composers and performers of London Music Masters. The new variations, which were conceived as portraits of Barack Obama, Rosalind Franklin and Rebecca Adlington, cast a bright new streetwise light on a familiar melody. Even more impressive was the Ten Pieces Choir, which gave a terrific performance of a rhythmically complex piece in celebration of home, composed by Kerry Andrews.
The idea of home and homecoming was the focus of the night’s most moving moment. It came about due to the literary charity PEN, which has been helping refugee children to give voice to their experience of living in exile in the UK. Among them is the group of Syrian-born children who came on stage to give a remarkably assured recitation of a jointly composed prose-poem.
It offered a moving description of the difficulties of life far from home, and the memories of the families, friends and simple pleasures such as Damascus ice cream they’ve left behind.
After that, the performance of the nostalgic slow movement from Dvořák’s New World took on a special poignancy, as it was meant to. Then it was back to the hunt for the firebird – and eventually it appeared, in the Albert Hall, operated by four puppeteers, to the triumphal strains of Stravinsky’s Firebird. The children clapped like mad. Music’s magic had clearly worked its spell on them too.
Hear this Prom for 30 days via the BBC website. The Proms continue until Sept 8. Tickets: 020 7070 4441.
Hear them all on BBC Radio 3, or listen to and download the Proms on your mobile or tablet via the BBC iplayer Radio app.