What's the most exciting thing about this year's Prom season?
Or any Prom season?
Look, I love this building and all the orchestras
and musicians who play here, but the most thrilling thing of all
is when this whole place, the Royal Albert Hall,
resounds with music that no-one's heard before.
Well, that's what I've got for you tonight -
a whole evening devoted to new music at the Proms.
Come on in and enjoy.
Now, all of the new music we're going to experience tonight
doesn't descend into the Prom season like alien life forms
into a forest of Beethoven, Mozart and Clara Schumann.
No, new music is part of the Proms tradition, it's in their lifeblood.
The Proms founder Henry Wood wanted to delight and challenge
and even shock his audiences with what he called his novelties -
new music made for the season.
And best of all is that we don't know what this music
is going to sound like - it's that sense of surprise.
We don't know how it's going to make us feel.
And it's wonderful to think that pieces like
Vaughan Williams' Fifth Symphony, Benjamin Britten's Piano Concerto,
Arnold Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces
and so, so many others all had their first-ever appearances at the Proms.
All music was new music once.
And anyone who's commissioned to write a new piece for the Proms
has an amazing thing at their disposal -
they're not just using the orchestra and singers
and soloists up there as their canvas, but also this gigantic hall.
And even us, their audience.
I mean, imagine having all of this to play with.
As a composer, it does not get bigger or better
or more exciting than that.
So, let's hear what six of our Proms composers have done
with their new music at the Proms this year.
Six premieres, all of them reflecting the people,
places and societies that surround us in 2024.
MacMillan, Marsalis, Nobuto, Clyne, Poe, Howard -
if you haven't heard of those names yet, you will do soon.
And we're going to kick off with the very first world premiere
of this year's Proms season, from the First Night of the Proms.
From the British/Japanese composer Ben Nobuto, his Hallelujah Sim.
And this really was a game-changing piece of music.
You know, they all come through here,
all the musicians who make any Proms season.
And anyone who's making new music at the Proms here,
they've trod this backstage corridor at the Royal Albert Hall,
making the sounds of now, the sounds of 2024.
But that's really true in this piece because, in Hallelujah Sim,
Ben Nobuto was inspired by everything from video games
to internet culture to Anton Bruckner
to produce a piece that's unlike
anything that I've ever heard at the Proms before.
Now, Hallelujah Sim is music with a manual, literally, because you'll
hear Ikea-like instructions from a booming, electronic voice.
Don't know what "a cappella" means? Well, you're about to find out.
That and a whole lot more. Here's Ben Nobuto.
My piece is called Hallelujah Sim
and it's written for chorus, orchestra and electronics.
It's structured like a video game, where the chorus has to sing
the word hallelujah loads of different times,
and each hallelujah is like a level in a video game.
And there's a voice in the electronics part that's sort
of guiding the chorus and telling them to sing in certain ways.
So they have to sing faster or slower and then randomise
and sort of combine the voice types and things like that
in order to, like, progress through the game.
I like to work with technology and incorporate electronics
and you find this weird hybrid where the two are sort of merged together
and you can't quite tell which is which.
I think it's important that new music is played at the Proms
because it's nice to have music that responds to our world now and,
yeah, the feeling of being alive now.
CHORUS: # Ha
ELECTRONIC VOICE: Welcome...to...
..Hallelujah Si-Si-Si-Si-Si-Si...
# Ha... #
Simulation.
The following is a step-by-step tutorial.
Please follow the instructions carefully.
Are you ready to proceed?
Hallelujah One. First syllable.
# Ha... #
Altos only. # Ha... #
Sopranos. # Ha... #
Tenors. # Ha... #
Bases. # Ha... #
Together. # Ha... #
Good.
Second syllable.
# Le... #
No.
# Le... #
No.
# Le... #
Yes.
CANNED CHEERING
Combined.
# Ha-le... #
OK.
Third syllable.
Lower voices.
# Lu... #
Upper voices.
# Lu... #
Together.
# Lu... #
Randomise.
VARIOUS PARTS OF THE CHORUS SING "LU" RHYTHMICALLY
Faster.
THEY SING FASTER
# Lu
# Ha
# Lu
# Ha
# Lu
# Ha
# Le... #
Looped.
RHYTHMIC SYLLABLES BLEND TOGETHER
# Hallelu... #
Fo...fourth syllable.
# Jah... #
Hallelujah One completed.
Hallelujah Two.
# Ha
# Le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha
# Le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha
# Le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha
# Le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha
# Le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha
# Le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha
# Ha le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha
# Ha le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha
# Le
# Lu
# Jah
# Ha le lu jah
# Ha le
# Lu jah
# Ha le lu
# Jah
# Ha le lu jah
# Ha le
# Lu jah
# Ha
# Le lu jah
# Ha le lu jah
# Lu jah, lu jah, lu jah, lu jah
# Lu jah... #
Hallelujah Three.
A cappella.
# Hallelujah
# Hallelujah, hallelujah
# Hallelujah, hallelu
# Hallelujah, halle
Hallelujah, halle
# Hallelujah, halle Hallelujah, ha
# Hallelujah, ha Hallelujah
# Hallelujah, ha Hallelu
# Hallelujah, hallelujah Hallelujah, hallelujah
# Hallelujah, hallelu Hallelu, hallelu
# Hallelu, hallelu Hallelu, hallelu
# Hallelu, halle Halle, halle
# Halle, halle
# Halle, halle, halle, halle Halle, halle, halle, halle
# Halle, halle, halle, halle... #
RAPID, CACOPHONOUS SYLLABLES
Amen.
Go!
# Halle
# Lujah
# Ha
# Le
# Lu
# Jah... #
Thank you for completing the-the-the-the-the...
..tu-tu-tu-tu-tutorial.
O-O—O-OK.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Well, from that dazzling and moving music for choir
and orchestra, to two more world premieres at the Proms this season
that use the human voice to find new worlds of feeling.
Coming up, Anna Clyne's mesmerising The Gorgeous Nothings.
But now music by the Finnish/American composer Lara Poe
that channels everything from the virtuosity of its soloist,
the soprano Anu Komsi, to Nordic cow calling.
It's called Songs From The Countryside
and it's a seven-part song cycle that's inspired by Lara Poe's
grandmother and her life in Finland.
Now, this is the first time that Lara Poe's music
has been heard at the Proms but in fact, she studied just over the
road here form the Royal Albert Hall, at the Royal College of Music.
Here's Lara to tell us more about Songs From The Countryside.
Laulut Maaseudulta, or Songs From The Countryside,
as the English title is,
features texts from my grandmother's
childhood and some other texts that I've compiled with my aunt.
It's in seven movements and it looks at relationships between humans,
the farm and nature.
The inspiration for this piece comes from a variety of places -
it comes from Anu's voice, it comes from the Finnish countryside
and it comes from a particular type of singing, Finnish cow calling.
This is a very different style of singing.
It's much more raw. The idea is you can project across,
say, several fields.
It will bring an element of outside into a concert space.
Being able to record these memories in music
is a great honour and privilege.
I hope the audience will learn more about this older heritage
and these older, rural environments that are disappearing in some areas.
SHE VOCALISES
APPLAUSE
A haunting evocation of the Finnish countryside.
Just amazing how music can take us so quickly to another place
and another time.
Well, Anna Clyne's The Gorgeous Nothings
has an equally clear inspiration, in the work of the
19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson,
and in particular her Envelope Poems.
Now, these are tiny scraps of text literally written on the
backs of used envelopes - full of philosophy, imagination
and whimsy.
But Anna Clyne's musical realisation of these words does something
completely new. Now, she's writing here for the
Grammy-award-winning singers of The Swingles.
But she's also using cutting-edge technology,
which she developed with Jody Elff, called
the Augmented Orchestra, in which the sounds of the voices
and the instruments can be manipulated and transformed
in real time. Here's Anna Clyne.
The Gorgeous Nothings is a new piece for The Swingle Singers
and Augmented Orchestra. I've always loved the
poetry of Emily Dickinson and I recently came across her
Envelope Poems, which are little fragments of poetry
that she wrote on little scraps of paper.
She often uses unusual capitalisations of words
within the line that you wouldn't expect,
and she also uses punctuation in interesting ways and
as a composer it's very interesting to think about these elements
and how they can be interpreted through music.
The Augmented Orchestra is a new innovation that I have been
developing with sound designer Jody Elff.
It's basically live processing of a select group of instruments
to expand the sound world in real time.
You'll hear the vibraphone down an octave, sounding like bells.
You'll hear the double basses pitched down an octave
to sound like an organ. And you'll even hear a bicycle wheel with
a playing card on - when you turn it, it creates a sort of
fluttering sound, which will move around the hall.
FLUTTERING/TICKING
In all honesty, I'm a little nervous, cos it's something
that's new, and I really am grateful that this is an opportunity to
try something new, to bring new technologies into the
orchestral world. So, I hope that I'll be experiencing it
along with the audience members, hearing these new sound
worlds for the very first time.
# This is my letter to the world
# That never wrote to me
# The simple news that nature told
# With tender majesty
# This is my letter to the world
# That never wrote to me
# The simple news that nature told
# With tender majesty
# This is my letter to the world
# That never wrote to me
# The simple news that nature told
# With tender majesty
# Her message is committed
# To hands I cannot see
# For love of her sweet countrymen
# Judge tenderly of me
# This is my letter to the world
# That never wrote to me
# The simple news that nature told
# With tender majesty. #
# Ahhh
# In this short life
# That only lasts an hour
# How much
# How little
# Is within our power
# Ahhh
# In this short life
# That only lasts an hour
# How much
# How little
# Is within our power
# Our power
# In this short life Ahhh
# That only lasts an hour Ahhh
# How much Ahhh
# How little Ahhh
# Is within our power Ahhh
# Our power
# Our power. #
# To light
# And then return
# To light and then return
To light and then return
# To light and then return
# Return, return... #
THEY VOCALISE
# To light and then return... #
THEY VOCALISE
# Miracle
# A firmament for all
# A miracle for all... #
THEY HARMONISE
# Mira-miracle
# Miracle-mira-miracle
# Miracle A firmament for all
# A miracle for all... #
SINGERS HARMONISE
# Clogged
# Only with, only with
# Clogged only with music
# Music
# Clogged only with music
# Like the wheels of birds
# Clogged only with music
# Like the wheels of birds
# Clogged, wheels
# Music
# Clogged
# Wheels Music
# Only with, only with
# Only with music
# Like the wheels of birds
# Music like the wheels of birds
# Afternoon
# And the west
# And the gorgeous nothings
# Which
# Compose the sunset
# Keep their high appointment
# Their high appointment
# Clogged with music
# Only music
# Only with music
# Like the wheels of birds. #
# One note from one bird
# One note from one bird... #
THEY VOCALISE
# One note from one bird is better than a million words
# A million words, a million words
# A scabbard holds but one sword
# A scabbard holds but one sword... #
THEY VOCALISE
# One note from one bird... #
THEY VOCALISE
# One note from one bird
# A scabbard holds but one sword
# A scabbard needs but one sword
# A scabbard holds but one sword
# From one bird
# One note from one bird
# One note from one bird. #
# Look back on time with kindly eyes
# He doubtless did his best
# Look back on time with kindly eyes
# He doubtless did his best
# Look back on time with kindly eyes
# He doubtless did his best
# How softly sinks that trembling sun
# In human nature's west
# How softly sinks his trembling sun
# In human nature's west. #
# But are not
# But are not all facts dreams
# As soon as we put them behind us?
# But are not all facts dreams
# As soon as we put them behind
# Us? #
SINGERS VOCALISE
# All facts dreams... #
SINGERS HARMONISE
# Behind
# Us? #
# This is my letter to the world
# That never wrote to me
# The simple news that nature told
# With tender majesty
# This is my letter to the world
# That never wrote to me
# The simple news that nature told
# With tender majesty
# This is my letter to the world
# That never wrote to me
# The simple news that nature told
# With tender majesty
# Her message is committed
# To hands I cannot see
# For love of her
# Sweet countrymen
# Judge tenderly of me
# This is my letter to the world
# That never wrote to me
# The simple news that nature told
# With tender majesty. #
APPLAUSE
Everything we're hearing tonight celebrates the power of music
to bring us together, something we need now more than ever.
Well, our next piece joins us together in a moment of thrilling
anticipation. It's by the British composer Dani Howard,
who's resident artist with the National Youth Orchestra.
And you know that tingling feeling you get just before
the music and the dancing starts - three, four and...?!
Well, that's the title of Dani Howard's piece and
that's what her music is all about, and she's composed it especially
for the energy, drive and ambition of the virtuosos
of the National Youth Orchestra, something that means so much to
Dani Howard herself.
With that title - the Three, Four AND...
that you get in dance and music, it's all about
that moment after the "and", where you're waiting for
what's about to happen. The piece doesn't end with a full stop
because that's not how I feel about these kids,
it's about what's to come next.
When I was speaking with the National Youth Orchestra,
we discussed coming up with a melody that was going to be taken
on the NYO Inspire tour.
And, you know, basically morphed, interpreted by young people -
as young as five years old -
and teenagers across the country.
The piece includes this as one melody,
as the centrepiece,
and it's been really crazy to be tagged in social media
by lots and lots of young people with their performance,
whether that's split screen of them playing several instruments
or lots of layers. It's been really quite emotional, actually.
I love the fact that these young people were told
that this melody has just been written
and they'll know that they shaped in some part
this brand-new composition.
I'm writing, in this case,
primarily for these young people
and their experience of playing this music,
and so I just hope people get sort of lost
in a world for the 13 minutes that it goes on for -
just to se how incredibly talented they are.
STAMPING, SHUSHING AND CLICKING
STAMPING AND SHUSHING
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Well, as we near the end of our new music odyssey
at the Proms, we have a piece by James MacMillan that nearly blew
the roof off this place when it was done earlier in the season.
So, James MacMillan - well, this isn't the first piece he's had done
at the Proms by far.
I'll never forget his first Proms premiere in 1990.
It was The Confession Of Isobel Gowdie,
and watching it on the telly in Glasgow changed MY life
and, I'm sure, many thousands watching.
You know, that was such a transformative piece
and experience, as is this one.
Look, this year, James MacMillan has written
Timotheus, Bacchus And Cecilia especially for Sir Mark Elder,
in the final run of his concerts after nearly a quarter century
as the Halle orchestra's music director.
And this is a jubilant orchestral and choral festival
in just 20 minutes or so.
And it unites pretty well the entire Halle family -
all their choirs and of course the orchestra itself -
in a hymn of praise to the power of music
and its patron saint, Cecilia.
Now, Sir Mark Elder told me that Timotheus, Bacchus And Cecilia
is a journey from darkness towards light.
But the blazing brightness that this piece finds at the end -
I mean, it is really overwhelming.
It's just totally shattering.
You feel one of the most extraordinary things
that all these choirs and the orchestra
could possibly have made together.
It makes your soul shake with emotion.
Well, that's what it did to me -
and I'm sure it will to you, too.
Above all, this is a celebration of just how overwhelming
and how meaningful new music at the Proms really is.
This piece was commissioned to mark Sir Mark Elder's final concerts
with the Halle orchestra,
and when Sir Mark spoke to me about it,
he quite rightly suggested
that the work should celebrate music in one shape or another.
And so I immediately thought of who the figures -
the archetypal figures -
in poetry and antiquity were associated with music,
and of course Cecilia is there - Saint Cecilia. But there are others.
And the perfect poem that grapples
with all the different allegorical figures
associated with the power of music is John Dryden's Alexander's Feast,
written in the late 1600s.
It's a big poem, so I focused on three particular figures -
Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia.
And that is in fact the title of the work.
When one is setting text,
you're given this great gift from a poet.
And so the music has to serve the text.
It has to understand the text, get in about the text,
in between the meaning of the lines
and in a sense incapsulate something of the deep essence,
the deep spiritual hinterland of that text
to communicate it in music.
And that is the great aspiration of every composer
who sets a poet's work.
To get a commission to write a work which celebrates
the power of music is a great gift,
and a great sense of pride and delight for me as a composer.
# Timotheus
# Timotheus placed on high
# Amid the tuneful choir
# Timotheus
# With flying fingers
# Touched the lyre
# The trembling notes
# Ascend the sky
# And heavenly joys
# Inspire
# The song began from Jove
# Who left
# Left his blissful seats
# Above
# Above, above, above
# Such is the power
# Of mighty love
# Mighty
# Love
# A dragon's fiery form
# Belied the god
# Sublime on radiant spires
# He rode
# When he to fair Olympia pressed
# And while he sought
# Her snowy breast
# Then round her slender waist
# He curled
# And stamped an image of himself
# A sovereign of the world
# The listening crowd
# Admire the lofty sound
# "A present deity!"
# They shout around
# "A present deity!"
# The vaulted roofs rebound
# With ravished ears
# The monarch hears
# With ravished ears
# The monarch hears
# With ravished ears
# The monarch hears
# Assumes the god
# Affects to nod
# And seems to shake the spheres... #
# The praise
# Of Bacchus
# Bacchus
# Then the sweet musician sung
# Of Bacchus ever fair
# And ever young And ever young
# The jolly god in triumph comes
# Sound the trumpets
# Beat the
# Drums
# Flushed with a purple grace
# He shows his honest face
# Now give the hautboys breath
# He comes, he comes
# Bacchus, ever fair
# Bacchus, ever fair and young
# And young
# Bacchus, ever fair and young
# Drinking joys did first ordain
# Bacchus' blessings are a treasure
# Drinking is the soldier's pleasure
# Rich the treasure
# Sweet the pleasure
# Sweet is pleasure
# After pain
# After pain... #
# Sancta Cecilia
# Ora pro nobis
# Sancta Cecilia
# Ora pro nobis
# Sancta Cecilia
# Ora pro nobis
# Sancta Cecilia
# Ora pro nobis
# Thus
# Long ago
# Where heaving
# Bellows learned
# To blow
# While organs
# Yet were mute
# Timotheus
# To his breathing flute
# And sounding lyre
# Could swell
# The soul to rage
# Or kindle
# Soft desire
# Sancta Cecilia
# Ora pro nobis
# Sancta Cecilia
# Ora pro nobis
# Sancta Cecilia
# Ora pro nobis
# Sancta Cecilia
# Ora pro nobis
# At last divine Cecilia came
# Inventress of the vocal frame
# The sweet enthusiast
# From her sacred store
# Enlarged the former narrow bounds
# And added length to solemn sounds
With Nature's mother-wit
# And arts unknown before
# Unknown before
# Let old Timotheus
# Yield the prize
# Or both divide the crown
# He raised a mortal to the skies
# She drew an angel down
# He raised a mortal to the skies
# She drew an angel down
# He raised a mortal to the skies
# She drew an angel down... #
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
Well, that's almost the end of our whistle-stop tour
through new music at this year's Proms.
You know, all of those composers sharing with us
that sense of what it's like to celebrate the really
astounding cultures of new music at the moment.
And all of those listeners coming together for their journeys
of discovery here at the Royal Albert Hall,
becoming a community of new music lovers.
But those journeys are just ongoing.
You can start them yourselves,
use the five pieces you've heard tonight as upbeats
and springboards into your own journeys
through the odyssey of new music and its universes.
And, look, I know I'm biased,
but BBC Radio 3's New Music Show is a pretty good place to start.
But aren't you lucky? I've got one more treat
of new music at the Proms this summer to share with you.
It's by the composer and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis,
and it's a celebration of brass instruments and their culture.
Heroic brassy music, this.
So you'll hear hints of Duke Ellington,
and New Orleans, Copland and Gershwin.
This is American music at its most vibrantly American.
It's called Herald, Holler And Hallelujah!
And I challenge all of you to listen and experience this piece
without a smile on your face.
Enjoy!
APPLAUSE