David Pickard’s nine years in charge of the BBC Proms, one of the most enviable jobs classical music has to offer, have certainly not always gone as smoothly as he might have hoped. If the consequences of Brexit and the difficulties it has created for musicians wanting to perform and tour in Britain were not enough to work around, then the havoc that Covid restrictions inflicted on the 2020 and 2021 seasons made nonsense of many carefully laid plans.
Pickard’s programming has sometimes seemed shaped more by a concern to ensure that every politically correct box was ticked than by determination to come up with a summer season that was as adventurous and attractive as an organisation with BBC’s resources should have no problems in assembling. But first impressions of the new season, his last in charge, suggest that Pickard might finally have got close to achieving a decent balance between all the elements and the different genres that are now expected in a full Proms season.
