Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.It is five years since Daniel Barenboim was last at the BBC Proms with his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra of musicians from across the Middle East. A lot has happened since then, little of it good. The region has descended into another period of violence, and in 2022 Barenboim himself was diagnosed with a serious medical condition that led to him stepping back from engagements.Against that background, it is not surprising that the conductor was greeted like a returning hero. It is hard to overstate his standing at the Proms: he made his debut as far back as 1966 and has led memorable events such as the Beethoven symphony cycle in 2012 (before dashing off to be a flag-bearer at the London Olympics) and the Wagner Ring cycle of 2013.He conducts sitting down now, but the minimal gestures (barely visible when he holds the baton so low?) seem enough. Barenboim’s favoured ground is the Austro-German classics and that is the focus of this summer’s West-Eastern Divan Orchestra tour of Europe’s music festivals, with Rheingau, Salzburg and Lucerne still to come.The Proms audience heard two major works. Brahms’s Violin Concerto with Anne-Sophie Mutter edged into consciousness through an almost impossibly tender, drawn-out introduction, and pace remained difficult to come by throughout, but Mutter pushed the music along when she could. She remains peerless in technique and quality of sound for this concerto, the highest passages on the violin romantically sweet and perfectly controlled. When speed arrived in the finale, the performance took off.Schubert’s Symphony No 9 also made a stately start, but Barenboim was more animated here. He always allowed the music space to breathe, so Schubert’s repeated rhythms did not feel relentless, nor the players sound stressed. This was lyrical, glowing Schubert, not as rhythmically sharp as some, but the orchestra played with fine balance and warmth. There was no political speech from Barenboim this year — only long and heartfelt applause. ★★★★☆Barenboim has spoken about the quietness of Proms audiences. That is even more evident at the late-night Proms; the most recent had hushed concentration for Heiner Goebbels’s Songs of Wars I Have Seen (2002/07). The work was commissioned for a mixed group of players drawn from the period-instrument Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and contemporary specialists the London Sinfonietta. Goebbels selected readings from Gertrude Stein’s memoir of living in occupied France during the second world war; his music does not so much interpret the texts as establish a pensive mood in which they can be pondered. Stein’s quirky, everyday observations are what matter here, at least until a solo trumpet epilogue compels attention. Goebbels instructs that extracts be read by the female musicians, who did so very professionally at this performance, and they were well amplified. As at the premiere, the OAE and London Sinfonietta joined forces, this time conducted by Chloe Rooke. ★★★☆☆The National Youth Orchestra’s annual Prom is always a fixture worth catching. The highlight of this year’s concert was the premiere of Dani Howard’s Three, Four And . . ., an orchestral showpiece of a truly Proms massiveness. More than 150 NYO players were listed in the programme and extra musicians from its companion project NYO Inspire overflowed into boxes and up in the gallery. Howard’s music does not just do the obvious and play it big and loud, instead offering beautiful, glittering combinations of instruments — a surround-sound experience on a grand scale. Was this the largest orchestra ever heard in the Royal Albert Hall?Also on the programme were Missy Mazzoli’s Orpheus Undone, derived from a ballet score that contrasts rhythmic movement and stasis, and an unusually thoughtful performance of Mahler’s Symphony No 1, conducted by Alexandre Bloch. It must have taken long hours of rehearsal and commitment to achieve so much expressive detail from such young musicians. ★★★★☆To September 14, bbc.co.uk/proms
