Is it bad etiquette to give an encore that upstages the main work? The a cappella vocal group the Swingles raised the question by following The Gorgeous Nothings, the work they had co-commissioned from the composer Anna Clyne for this Prom, with their whirling, beatboxing arrangement of a Bulgarian folk tune, Bučimiš.
This party piece made one wish The Gorgeous Nothings had more consistently taken flight. In seven, harmonically rooted short movements plus a framing prologue and epilogue, it sets some of Emily Dickinson’s envelope poems – fragments jotted on paper scraps, unformed yet offering fertile imagery. A reference to birds in one text brought an idyllic passage with the three female singers almost resembling Disney songbirds; meanwhile, a percussionist spun a bicycle wheel with a playing card clipped to one of its spokes, making a noise like the wings of a giant hummingbird.
