The First Prom: 27 July 1989

Striking Stories: a series of posts written by volunteers unearthing the fascinating stories within The Evelyn Glennie Collection. 

On Friday, 19th July 2024, two people carried the bust of a certain gentleman to his accustomed position in the Royal Albert Hall, London. 

The bust is of Sir Henry Wood, rescued from the bombed Queen’s Hall in 1941, co-founder of the Proms, which every year presides over the annual festival from his position in front of the magnificent organ. 

The brainchild of impresario Robert Newman, manager of the new Queen’s Hall, the Proms, originally entitled ‘Mr Robert Newman’s Promenade Concerts’, began in 1895 with Henry Wood at the helm, aiming to reach a wide audience with popular programmes at affordable prices with Wagner on Mondays, Beethoven on Fridays and ‘novelties’ throughout the season. 

The BBC took over the Proms in 1927, formed its own BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1930 led by Sir Henry Wood, and, despite a break between 1939 and 1941, has done so ever since. In 1941, The Blitz destroyed the Queen’s Hall and so the 1941 season moved to the Royal Albert Hall, its home to this day. 

Sir Henry Wood died in 1944 and the BBC renamed the Proms after him, since when they have developed in so many ways including commissioning new works, welcoming a variety of different leading domestic and foreign orchestras, conductors and artists and incorporating additional venues, turning the Proms from a successful, but relatively conservative enterprise, into a major international festival.

The World’s Greatest Music Festival

On 3rd May, 1989 the BBC announced THE WORLD’S GREATEST MUSIC FESTIVAL with 68 concerts in 58 days entitled FROM OEDIPUS TO BRITANNIA, with over 40 of the 68 concerts having mythological and legendary elements. 

It said hello to conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and goodbye to Sir John Pritchard. It welcomed 7 visiting orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 6 BBC Commissions, including pieces by Richard Rodney Bennett and John Tavener, alongside premieres for, amongst others, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Arvo Part and John McLeod, the latter being very important for Evelyn Glennie who herself was described as ‘prodigiously talented’ by John Drummond in his Foreword to the Proms. 

There were operas, from John Blow through to Mozart and Wagner, concertos, sonatas, symphonies, choral masterpieces, songs from Broadway and Hollywood, and, an evening of Indian Classical music by Imrat Khan and Sons. There were Proms featuring solo instruments for the piano, horn, cello, violin, viola, oboe, trumpet, guitar, flute, clarinet and, even, maracas. However, something new was about to happen!

Richard Morrison wrote: 

‘Late in the evening of July 27 there will be a remarkable event in the world of classical music. An entire programme in this year’s BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts will be devoted to a recital by a percussionist. That in itself is extraordinary. Until Evelyn Glennie came along, no one believed it was possible to be a full-time solo percussionist – not if the player wanted to eat, anyway.’ 

A further preview added: 

‘A whole Promenade concert devoted to a single performer is an unusual event by any standards. Add to this that the performer is only 24 years-old and a percussionist, and it becomes undeniable that Scottish-born Evelyn Glennie is making her Proms debut in style.’ 

Evelyn performed Keiko Abe’s ‘Michi’ , Toshimitsu Tanaka’s ‘Two Movements for marimba’, Paul Price’s ‘Exhibition Snare Drum Solo No1’, Paul Creston’s ‘Concertino’ Op 21 and her own arrangement of Chopin’s ‘C Sharp minor study Op 10 No 4’, all fleshed out in detail with biographical notes in the particular concert programme.  A review of the concert by Stephen Pettitt states: 

‘Evelyn Glennie may not quite have her patter right, but behind a marimba she becomes the showman par excellence. This late night Prom confirmed that she is also possessed of a remarkable technique. What it failed to reveal was any music of real stature, though some pieces tried. 

‘No matter, for the entertainment was the thing, and very good it was too. John McLeod’s The Song of Dionysus, receiving its world premiere, was both the most ambitious and the most successful. It had Glennie and her pianist, the excellent Philip Smith, reversing roles at the beginning and the end, while in between Glennie negotiated a wide variety of instruments. This was forcefully energetic music, both imaginative and idiomatic, and it was played with a disarming brilliance’.

A glittering Proms career had begun and percussion had made its mark on one of the greatest festivals of the world.

written by Peter Horley