The Proms. One week down and eight to go. Things are getting exciting!

Two concerts into the Proms and things are already starting to get very interesting.
First up, was a lunch time concert at Cadogan Hall, a series of French love songs (sung in French to confuse the English audience) and performed by a mezzo soprano , one Alice Coote.
By her own admission Alice was on much more familiar territory when ripping into Wagner. The publicity photo fully supports this claim.
That said, Alice delivered sixty minutes of electricity. This woman slotted into the role and by the middle of her first number was rolling her eyes , strutting her stuff, tearing at her opera gown, clutching her face, the whole nine yards.
What a performance, the crowd went ballistic, so much so that the Radio BBC3 MC at one stage beseeched us to cool it so the radio listeners could maximise their enjoyment.
However, I have to say that towards the end of Alice's dynamic performance a really weird  recollection leapt into my thoughts.
As I was watching Alice tearing away at her God awful and badly fitting opera gown my thoughts carried back to an episode many years ago when I was working with my good friend Eric Pilling and on this particular weekend it fell to the Pillings and Alcorns to entertain a sales guy we had over from the USA.
We wanted to make a real impression on this guy so had set up a dinner for five at the Pillings house for Saturday evening.
I suggested to Eric that we nail some interesting entertainment and initially Eric came back with the suggestion that for a hundred and fifty bucks we could hire an act that made house calls called The Jumping Jews. ( I know, I know, but this was the eighties. Stuff like this happened in those days). The scenario here was that four Jewish guys front up at your house dressed in full kit, then backed by the appropriate music proceed to leap around your lounge for an hour or so.
Both Eric and I were bitterly  disappointed to hear that our jumpers were fully booked for the  weekend so we settled on a musical duo, a seventy something opera singer (again in full garb) who would belt out all the numbers from The Sound Of Music, accompanied by a singing dog.
I have to say the performance from start to finish was a classic, possibly one of the greatest in-house performances I have ever witnessed.
The singer and dog arrived at the Pillings front door acompanied by a minder in the form of her husband, a real character who played his part to the max. I actually remember this guy clearly for two reasons 1) because he was attired in a magnificent brown hand knitted cardigan with huge wooden toggle buttons that looked like the shells of small baby turtles and 2) whilst his wife and her four legged friend were belting out Julie Andrews classics , Bob was busy in the kitchen hoovering through Eric's wine stock.
As for the performance, things were going great guns for the most part, that was until Eric recognised one of the numbers and decided to add his voice and deliver the song as a trio.
Disaster, Eric had no way of knowing the dog was a "duo only specialist". Said dog immediately spat the dummy and got stage fright.
Performance over. 
And what's the connection with Alice, both women wore badly fitting gowns.
Aah memories, aren't they wonderful things.

Fashion Policewoman Julia speaking. When this Opéra singer glided onto the stage she received gasps from the audience. I then realised it wasn't her presence that got their attention but what she was shrouded in. A billowing, red and white striped silk number, too long, too loose and completely shapeless. John and I both agreed that Alice must have stolen and restyled her husband's yacht spinnaker. 

Onto Saturday evening.
This had to be a winner. Daniel Barenboim conducting the brilliant West-Eastern Divan Orchestra performing Beethoven's Symphonies 3&4. I have to admit something was nagging away at me whilst we rode along in the the 360 to the Royal Albert Hall. Finally I figured out what was troubling me and I turn to Julia and said you know there's something not quite right here. If the kick off time is 7:30 and the concert finishes at approximately 10:00, even if there's a healthy thirty minute intermission  that still leaves two full hours in performance time and there's just no way the 3rd and 4th will take two hours to knock out.
Straight through the front door and up to the programme counter, quickly opening to page twelve and blow me down, good on Daniel has slipped in Pierre Boulez's 'Dialogue de l'ombre double' as some kind of fill-in act between both symphonies.
Let's deal with the positives first. Daniel Barenboim is one class act and is a hugely energetic and entertaining conductor. Daniel put together this orchestra some years back so they have had time to gel. The results speak for themselves. As an aside the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is named to reflect that the musicians hail from a mixture of Arab and Israeli origins, which is a pretty good thing thing all round.
As for the symphonies, what can you say. In other worlds, familiarity might breed contempt, however that's obviously not the case when it comes to good old Ludwig. The audience went wild in their appreciation of both Beethoven pieces. This was seriously moving stuff.
Now, as for the fill-in, all I will say is that Monsieur Boulez is an acquired taste. I would hazard a guess that apart from Daniel and the orchestra, the other 8,000 punters in the hall, all to a man (and woman) thought this piece was at best tedious and at worst an over hyped piece of junk.
As a rock music lover my ears and brain are conditioned to taking onboard all manner of trashy rubbish.
Let me just say that for me, Boulez created a new low with daylight between this and probably the second worst piece of music I have had the misfortune to listen to ( some Pink Floyd number written back in the early seventies when both the composer and performers were as high as kites when they laid down the track).
Post concert when we were waiting for the bus to take us back to a pub near Pimlico, any number of fellow concert goers were all hammering away with the same general comments, to wit, what the bloody hell was Barenboim up to slipping that piece of junk into the programme.
As a postscript I should tell you that Andrew Marr interviewed Daniel on the BBC on Sunday morning and when Andrew put it to him that throwing Boulez into the Beethoven series was a bit of a low blow, Daniels response was that it was important to air these lesser known composers.
Guess what, on Tuesday night we are off to another Ludwig double header, the 7th and 8th. Don't even ask. Crafty Daniel has thrown us yet another curve ball filler, this time it will be Boulez's Anthemes 2. I can hardly wait (not!)

Julia's comment. To my mind, there is a thin line between what is music and what is simply noise. I love jazz and when my ears first heard the start of Monsieur Boulez's piece I got excited but after only ten minutes I thought I had gone to hell. Was this a sick joke? Towards the end, the music (sound/noises) dipped and the now restless audience heaved a collective sigh thinking their torture was at an end. Bad luck, Daniel and his boys had at least ten minutes left in the tank. I knew the applause would be enormous....generated by relief. I was also aware that this piece coming right before intermission would guarantee record alcohol sales at the Hall's bars at the upcoming thirty minute break.