Every year, the BBC Proms runs the risk of trying so hard to please everybody that they end up pleasing nobody. The complaints are many and varied: too much (or not enough) non-classical music; too many TV tie-ins (do we really need a Prom built around The Traitors – July 26 – even if Claudia Winkelman is the presenter?); not enough UK-based ensembles from outside London; not enough (or too many) orchestras from around the world; and so it goes on.
Yet the fact remains that, while the Proms may or not be “the world’s greatest music festival”, as the endless TV and radio ads try to persuade us, they remain a treasure chest of music of all kinds. Classical music remains at its heart and it’s difficult to complain that it’s been sidelined, but musical life has many facets and the BBC Proms reflects its fair share of them.
