BBC Proms 2020
BBC TWO, 8.00PM
❖ With so many venerable and beloved music venues in London and around the country under threat, the resumption of an annual tradition at one of the most venerable and beloved of all comes as a great relief. Katie Derham is, as always, our host for the First Night of live performances from the classical music festival at the Royal Albert Hall (previous nights having been drawn from the archive). Accompanied by Stephen Fry and with no audience present, Derham will no doubt have the best seat in the house.
The performances come from the BBC Singers and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, led by the Finnish conductor Sakari Oramo, with a programme ranging from Beethoven’s sweepingly emotional
Eroica symphony to Aaron Copland’s Quiet City, which has long outlived the forgotten play for which it was written, and Eric Whitacre’s a cappella choral work Sleep, originally set to Robert Frost’s poem Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. As is increasingly the case, a new work will also receive its premiere: Hannah Kendall’s Tuxedo: Vasco ‘de’ Gama, apparently inspired by
Jean-michel Basquiat. It may not be normal service resumed, but it’s something. Gabriel Tate bagging the rights to the yet-to-be released third. An exercise in amiably corny nostalgia, Cobra Kai revives the narrative and some of the cast from the original
Karate Kid films, as the rivalry between erstwhile students-turned-mentors Daniel Larusso (Ralph Macchio) and Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) is rekindled when the latter reopens the titular karate dojo. The elements of midlife crisis are counterbalanced by the painful teen angst of their children and other assorted misfits.