Review: Prom 29: Bavouzet, BBC Phil, Collon - Royal Albert Hall, London

French selection soars and sparkles

The Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in April. The classical musical festival is one of the BBC’s most cherished institutions (BBC)

This fascinating Prom began with a Mozart work which opera audiences sometimes hear but never listen to – the long dance suite which rounds off Idomeneo: not a masterpiece, but worth getting to know. Then Jean-Efflam Bavouzet took the solo part in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, making the Gershwinesque first movement infectiously jazzy before delivering the problematic Adagio as though it were no problem at all: in most hands the melodic line drifts limply, but Bavouzet gave it shape. After despatching the finale with panache, he gave a brilliant Pierné encore.

There followed a new orchestration by Christopher Dingle of Messiaen’s Oiseau Tui: diamond-bright and diamond-hard, this intricate four-minute work was terse and gripping. Stravinsky’s middle-period Symphony in Three Movements came next, its contours pellucidly brought out by Nicholas Collon and the BBC Philharmonic.

Then came another new four-minute gem: Colin Matthews’ orchestral arrangement of Ravel’s Oiseaux Tristes, whose delicate suggestiveness made one wish for much more. Ravel’s La Valse ended the evening in exhilarating style.