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There are those BBC Proms performances that revel in the acoustic quirks of the Royal Albert Hall and those that bravely weather its challenges. Either way, the venue’s vast arena and cavernous dome tend to loom large. Then there are those rare, astonishing performances that seem untouched by basic matters of physics: performances that take flight instantly and apparently without effort from the monumental Victorian architecture, conjuring a space entirely their own – ephemeral and miraculous – for as long as they last.
The Sinfonia of London’s concert on the penultimate night of the 2025 Proms season was one such performance. A frenetic ascending scale, an immediate gathering of forces into a single, razor-sharp motif, a precipitous tumble to bounce on the timpani – and we were off, violins airborne with one of Richard Strauss’s most joyfully propulsive melodies. This wasn’t just a vivid, high-definition reading of a familiar score: Strauss’s tone poem Don Juan sounded as if it had been made to measure. Woodwind solos were lithe and spacious, the strings glossy, the lower brass fixed in the crosshairs.
Such performances are far from effortless, of course. Sinfonia of London is a handpicked crack team of other orchestras’ finest players, but it is conductor John Wilson’s weapons-grade energy levels and his ear for tiny, transformative details that are essential to its success. As if more evidence were needed that, just four years since its live debut, Wilson has made this orchestra one of the UK’s best, Leonard Bernstein’s Serenade featuring violinist James Ehnes boasted a vast colour palette, from ambivalent nattiness via melancholy, diaphanous textures to vibrant surges of strings. Ehnes was an ideal musical interlocutor: entirely poised, his tone lucid, even as the ringleader of the final movement’s urbanely folksy dance.
But there’s no orchestral showcase like Ravel’s Daphnis and Chloe, the ballet score performed here in its entirety. From the barely audible hum of its opening to the blistering release of its frenzied final bars, via iridescent flute solos and interjections from the finely blended Sinfonia of London Chorus, the score seemed entirely malleable in Wilson’s constantly moving hands, his dynamism utterly contagious.
