This was a special Prom in many ways. For a start, it featured the National Youth Orchestra (NYO) and Choirs which, with two other choirs also in attendance, meant several hundred performers crowded onstage. It also marked the bicentenary of the Royal Philharmonic Society (RPS), and it was the first ever free Prom, which meant a different audience demographic, including many children.
Conductor Vasily Petrenko opened with Vaughan Williams’s Toward the Unknown Region, as sober as the title suggests but here sounding hesitant.
No such problem with Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Frieze, co-commissioned by the BBC and RPS specifically to accompany Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In the event, Frieze turned out more Bernstein than Beethoven but while there was a feeling of Turnage relying on tried and tested gestures, his punchy melodies and fractured rhythms gave the NYO players — particularly the brass section — an energetic work-out. If the RPS had done nothing else but commission Beethoven’s Ninth, its place in musical history would be secure.
This performance had some rough edges and an occasional lack of definition but what mattered more were the waves of commitment coming off the platform. The massed choirs more than matched the world-class quartet of soloists, while the orchestra seemed willing to follow Petrenko over the edge. I thought I glimpsed a smile crossing the bust of Beethoven that glowered at the front of the stage.
Catch up on iPlayer. Proms run until September 7 (0845 401 5040, bbc.co.uk/proms)
