Proms 2017: Mozart and Schumann

A classical opening to tonight's program, with Bernard Haitink and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe performing Mozart's Symphony No. 38 — the Prague — followed by an elegant performance of the Violin Concerto No. 3 with Isabelle Faust as soloist. The second half featured a engaging performance of Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 2, closing with Mendelssohn's sparky Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream as an encore.

Proms 2017: Birtwistle, Elgar, and a political point

The second of Daniel Barenboim and Staatskapelle Berlin's two proms, open with the UK premier of Harrison Birtwistle's Deep Time — an intriguing and engaging piece that shows Birtwistle at his best. Rather touchingly, the piece was dedicated to the memory of Birtwistle's old friend Peter Maxwell Davies, who died last year. The second half rounded out the programme started by Staatskapelle Berlin on Saturday, with a performance of Elgar's Symphony No. 2 — a piece I like more than the first — with Nimrod from the Enigma Variations as an encore. After a short, impassioned speech from Barenboim which talked about cross-cultural communication and which, very deliberately, didn't mention Brexit by name, the orchestra rounded off with another performance of Land of Hope and Glory; a pointed message from a man who has devoted a great deal energy to breaking down barriers.

Another quiz victory

Another victory for our team at in the Puerto Lounge quiz. Normally, I'm quite happy to let other people answer the questions and only chip in when no-one else has an idea (or when they're wrong!) This week there were a couple of obscure rounds, so I went ahead and crushed them — in some cases, I was able to write down the answer before the end of the question. Sadly, this rather did for my usual pretense of being a monkey of moderate intelligence — because if TV has taught us anything, it is that super-intelligent monkeys, with or without their electronium hats, inspire nothing but bad feeling! At one point, A said, "I don't know about the rest of you, but he's making me feel deeply inadequate..." And B, who I don't know terribly well said, "So, what do you do? Apart from being a professional quiz hustler..."