Popular culture includes both will-o'-the-wisp confections, gone in 900 seconds pace Warhol’s aphorism, but can also creates a shorthand that conveys more than a lengthy monograph in The London Review of Books. Long before he was Prime Minister, Andy Burnham was dubbed the "King of the North", and nobody felt the need to explain. That was the kind of cut-through achieved by Game of Thrones on page and screen.
On paper, this Prom looked like a well-stocked display-case for collective choral virtues. Baroque wizard Peter Whelan (pictured below) led the Choir and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in a rare first-half outing for the intensely dramatic Miserere in C minor by the Bohemian contemporary of Bach and Handel, Jan Dismas Zelenka.
Help secure the future of arts journalism
In this era of algorithmic recommendation, opaquely sponsored content and AI slop, theartsdesk’s mission to preserve real journalistic and critical values has never been more important.
If you like what you see here, please join us in this mission.
Subscribing to the site will help us in our coming redesign and expansion.
If you do this before the 31st August this will be at our guaranteed founder’s rate:
your subs will never increase again.
Subscribe now for £5 per month.
or yearly for just £40.
Or if you simply want to support us with a one-off donation, you can do so here.
Camp Bestival 2026, Lulworth Castle review - where the daytime magic still outshines everything else
latest in today
