Pyrotechnic Prom: Nielsen, Sibelius, Mozart and Walton in Prom No 1

And apparently there were real fireworks at the end of the second piece? Wish I'd been there now. I'm not sure I did hear the fizz of them going off, even listening to my recording from Radio 3 on professional 'cans'. . .

If I hadn't  been told, I might have just thought it was someone in the audience sneezing. Why, oh why, have concert (and opera) audiences these last two or three years become peculiarly bronchitic? The coughs (one sharp one had me ripping my headphones off) damn nearly ruined Sibelius's mock Turkish confection altogether.

So it's unfamiliar? So it's a it of a candy floss kind of thing? Still doesn't entitle you to cough all the way through it. I was reminded of an old joke from the Arena years ago, who chanted after the interval "That was an orchestral suite, not a cough suite!"

As an orchestral suite, of course, it was a little peculiar, starting off with all the wobbly belly dancing any Sultan could desire, but lapsing rather strangely into a kind of Nordic blues over a misty Finnish lake. Which did complement, in its way, Nielsen's Maskerade Overture which began this festival with a real fizz and sparkle.

I'm not, on the whole, a great fan of BBC Proms commissions; few last, after all. Probably Gary Carpenter's Dadaville won't either. Though it was nicely raucous and vivid (like most of this first Prom!) and there was a wonderfully fat tuba and some pretty vicious percussion. Otherwise, a rather odd (but appropriate for the first half, I suppose) mix of Nordic moodiness and blues broken up by some thoroughly Neapolitan (or maybe even Ischian?) crockery crashing and banging about in the cucina.

Max Ernst 'Ddaville'; courtesy of Tate Modern Liverpool

Lars Vogt's Mozart Piano Concerto was eloquently raucous too, lyricism unabated only for part of the middle movement. I understand why the audience wanted to applaud after the pyrotechnical first movement, but that's not to say I sympathise. Vogt is doubtless dynamic, and determined; but I do tire these days of that kind of relentless dynamism and devilry, however exciting it can be.

Though the prom goer who could tire of the BBC SO and the various BBC Chorus's (were any left at home last night?) Belshazzar's Feast in its Walton incarnation would have to be tired of life. Intensely lively and vivid, with astonishing singing. A very fiery performance indeed.

On the BBC iPlayer from today