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17 September 2020

Music|Arts Review
Keep Calm and Parry On

An unusual year for the Proms
By Anna Picard

Mitsuko Uchida playing with Simon Rattle and the London Symphony
Orchestra at the Proms on August 30© Chris Christodoulou/BBC

September 18, 2020
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IN THIS REVIEW

BBC PROMS 2020
BBC iPlayer

Were the 2020 BBC Proms behind the curve or ahead of it? It can’t be fun being a
political football during a pandemic. By March 15, when the London Symphony
Orchestra played Vaughan Williams’s Sixth Symphony with sorrow and ferocity
under Antonio Pappano to a diminished Barbican audience, it was obvious that
lockdown would come. The April launch of the Proms was postponed. Then, in
May, the first six weeks of performances were cancelled, leaving a fortnight in
which live concerts might, with luck, take place. A season of archive broadcasts