28 August 2020

Nobody home

In years to come, the date will tell its own story – a Proms season beginning at the end of August, with just two weeks of concerts to follow. Audience figures for that season – zero – will also reveal that the UK was still in the grip of Covid. With no-one in the seats or the Arena to applaud, the orchestral players did their best to fill the void by clapping the soloists, but it was a sorry sound. Tasked with conducting this strangest of First Nights, Sakari Oramo (left) said he would treat the occasion as if he and the BBC Symphony Orchestra were in the recording studio. Together, they performed works that included, in the composer’s 250th-anniversary year, Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ Symphony.