Which Musgrave was it, HtoHe (I could check the website I suppose, if I wasn't being lazy )? I generally find her recent music a bit grey, but I once heard a much earlier piece (1970ish) which I thought was excellent.

Stephen Hough is not usually one to pull things about, is he? The weirdest playing of mainstream Romantic concerti I've ever heard is from the Finnish pianist (and alleged composer) Olli Mustonen. I'd avoid him if I were you!

Glad you enjoyed La Mer. It's one of my favourite pieces of music ever.

I didn't notice anything really wrong with the Rachmaninov until the third movement. He reached the infamous bit in C minor, and almost immediately rushed away wildly. Conductor turned red. It didn't go well after that, he truly skimped some octave passages. The last flourish was just a blur of pedal. This was most uncharacteristic. Nerves? Lack of rehearsal time? Also, I wasn't impressed with the orchestra (they were good in the other pieces), there were times in the tune at the start where the cello's disappeared.

Many people in the arena disappeared at half-time, to have dinner I believe. Although this meant that I got into the front row for Musgrave and Debussy, there was no charity collection. This was despite the fact that the house was full (as far as I could see)...

Partly due to this, I had a close shave getting back to my place after the interval. I was talking to some people from RCM a little way back in the arena, and I was waiting for the charity shout for my cue to leave. This of course never materialised, and I had to run back to the front while Denève was coming on , made it with about a second to spare.

I always wish La Mer had more to it. The only bit I ever remember is the oboe tune near the end.

Thanks, Mary.  I hadn't thought of looking there - it all gets so involved and often so bad-tempered that if I've only got time for one MB it's going to be this one.  I like the suggestion that things just went wrong in a way that happens to the best of us sometimes.  Nobody seems to be suggesting it was a misunderstood brilliant interpretation - so that's more evidence for my theory that some audiences will cheer just about anything with wild enthusiasm.  I'm still going to go on Friday if I can get tickets.  If you're there, I'll be the other person who remains seated for the applause - unless there is an exceptional performance, of course.

How did you enjoy Turangalila btw; or have I missed your review?

Hm. I would say that whatever things it may be, badly constructed isn't one of them. The "spectacle" you mention might be something of a distraction from the structure sometimes, but almost every time I hear it my attention is drawn to some new instance of how so much of it can be traced back to the expansions, contractions and recombinations of the three basic themes. It certainly isn't Messiaen's most subtle piece of work (compare its slow movement with the related but infinitely more delicate one of Des canyons aux étoiles...) but for me it's one of the handful of twentieth-century orchestral pieces I would be hard put to live without, and one of the principal factors behind that is the combination it has of timbral/expressive freedom with tightness of structure. But one person's structure is another's chaos perhaps.

It's a poor show indeed, Mary.  If I'd thought there was any chance of seats I'd have taken my nephew to see an orchestra and conductor who probably won't be back in Liverpool for years performing a work that might not again be heard live there for ages.  That said, I estimated there were at least 20 empty seats in the Cadogan Hall stalls (officially sold out since at least July 28th) for the Nash Ensemble/Mark Padmore concert.  From my seat in the gallery I could see 8 pairs of vacant places at a quick glance; and there were odd singles, too.

There's another La Mer fan here, r: I've not yet caught up with that Prom, but the same forces performed it in Dundee earlier this year - a superb performance, which was also recorded and broadcast. Quite by chance, one of the extra musicians engaged for the performance and the short European tour that followed was someone I know from my time in London, from which source I learned that relations between the conductor and the (different) soloist on that occasion had been far from smooth: his work with the orchestra on the French repertoire has been consistently impressive, though.

Another card-carrying La Mer fan checks in. Maybe people used to rather more tempestuous depictions of the sea (Mary?  ) find Debussy's subtle colours and gradual evolutions of shapes and tones in this work a little underwhelming by comparison. But I find it utterly compelling and irresistable, and exemplifies like no other work of his (except perhaps Jeux) Debussy's fluid but absolutely precise command of unpredictable, yet completely convincing structural growth.