pension333: Proms 2012: week seven in review

Can you forgive the childbeaters' charter that is Peter Grimes? And why does the public not love Oliver Knussen like musicians do? Oh well, you can't please all the people all the time

The big catch for at the Proms this week was the visit of English National Opera with Britten's Peter Grimes, and a chance for a wider public to see one of the best productions of this - or indeed any opera - in recent years. ENO managed to reassemble most of the original 2009 cast, too, intending that the Prom would recapture as much as possible of the extraordinary emotional clarity and psychological intensity of the stage version.

Tim Ashley, reviewing the Proms performance for the paper, was bowled over by the "breathtaking lyrical ferocity" of the orchestra's playing under Ed Gardner, and observed that Stuart Skelton's Grimes "combines the heft of Jon Vickers with the refinement of Peter Pears, so we really do believe that this is a man who has the soul of a poetic visionary in the body of a thug."

Commenting below the review, growltiger00 couldn't agree more, finding the musical performance and acting "amazing from start to finish", and reserving particular praised for the way in which Skelton "made his way off stage to walk through the standing prommers in the arena, still completely 'in character' as a distressed, suicidal Peter Grimes. I was moved to tears."

Growltiger's taps were not the only ones to be turned on, the Albert Hall becoming a veritably Victorian waterworks during the course of the evening. "I said goodbye to my fellow concertgoer, and promptly burst into tears", said @ThomasKohut, while @Emmalucysmith reported "shivers down the spine and tears aplenty". @zany_zigzag just made it home "half-drowned in tears & rain after Peter Grimes. Incredible to be standing so close to such an intense performance."

The effect was nearly as overpowering for those standing miles away from the stage, listening on the radio or via Radio 3's high-definition audio stream, such as @RevRichardColes. "Adore Peter Grimes", he tweeted: "So brutal, so East Anglia, so glitter of waves, so major thirds." His correspondent however, @RobertHanks, declined to turn his dial to Radio 3 ? "@MartinRowson @RevRichardColes I would, but it's Peter Grimes: love the tunes, can't get with the 'Don't be mean to childbeaters' message" ? thereby ignoring the advice of @MartinRowson to turn away from the stream of libertarian hilarity on the other side coming from one James Dellingpole.

The Grimes concert was followed by the Proms' celebration of Oliver Knussen's 60th birthday, a party to which many were invited but to which, according to Martin Kettle's review, not everyone turned up. "Sadly," he wrote in the paper, "attendance is small but select. 'No one empties a hall quite like Olly,' one of his admirers admitted on Saturday. But some of the giants of Knussen's generation were there all the same."

And so they were. Here was Michael Tilson Thomas (@mtilsonthomas) for starters: "W/ Oliver Knussen @ Albert Hall after his Prom. He performed his 3rd Symph. I premiered it at the Proms 33 years ago!!" Composers Alexander Goehr and Helen Grime were also present to hear the former's Metamorphosis/Dance and the latter's new Night Songs, performed twice after Knussen lost his glasses during the first performance. "Oliver Knussen playing Grimes piece again because his glasses fell off!! I love Olly!!", reported the mezzo-soprano @lucyschaufer, who loves him so much her twitter profile picture has her seated on the great man's lap. Knussen makes a habit of performing new or difficult works twice the same programme, however, so the trick with the spectacles might just have been a way to get round the bossy BBC schedulers, who knows?

That said, the coming week is a triumph of bossy scheduling, the BBC managing to squeeze in two of the greatest European orchestras, twice each. The ordinarily extraordinary Berlin Philharmonic perform on Thursday and Friday, while the predictably inspirational Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra occupy Saturday and Sunday with an alliterative take on the art of concert programming, performing Mendelssohn, Messiaen and Mahler. What's that?

Ah, yes. Mmmmm.