(Above and below) Musicircus performers at the London Coliseum

American composer John Cage's Musicircus, a musical happening first realised in 1967 'for any number of musicians, being prepared to perform in the same place', is rooted in his idea that 'many musics may be heard at one and the same time'. Which sounds like chaos, yet, as ever with Cage, it is less a chaotic shambles than an extremely disciplined action that opens the door to wholly unexpected results.

For the English National Opera Musicircus in March this year, with over 200 performers strewn across the four floors of the Coliseum in London, the combined result was a feast for the senses, sounds streaming in from every angle: around corners, behind closed doors, down stairwells and even in the ladies toilet. Each of the performers, be they hand-bell ringers, violinists, or even John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin, followed chance-derived timing sheets that dictated when they should play, and when they should be silent. With each sheet being an independently generated set of timings, as a listener you experience the interplay of different musicians stopping, starting, overlapping, creating waves of concurrent musical sounds or silences.

Part of the appeal of a Musicircus is the anarchic nature of a building full of people, a musical carnival, apparently inspired by the composer's 1931 visit to Seville where he experienced a wild mix of different musicians all on the same street corner. So the idea of recording a Musicircus, creating a fixed version of an event, in which by design anything could happen, is fraught with difficulties. Not least because with 200 performers who may or may not be playing at any one time scattered around a vast Edwardian theatre, you need to have a microphone on everything; and that is a lot of microphones. It is also crucial to be faithful to the idea of the Musicircus, and present the meandering of an interested listener wandering at will through the forest of sounds that make up the piece, open to all. Once you start to make decisions about the relative merits of one sound over the other, what may or may not be more interesting, you start to stray from a Cageian ideal of a 'multiplicity of rights'.

Step forward Mr James Birtwistle, who with his crack team of sound engineers, seemingly half the BBC stock of microphones and a lot of cabling, on 50 time-coded channels managed to record the entire event. Every squeak, parp, declamation or silence was recorded, an almighty collective musical statement painstakingly captured. But this was not the whole picture, as for each visitor to the Musicircus the experience of what they heard at any given moment would be different. So James took it upon himself to wander the building with a stereo microphone, to create a narrative that took in the serendipitous tuttis, the silences, and the muttering of his fellow audience members. Once we'd returned to Broadcasting House, the next job was to mix the multitrack recording with James' stereo wanderings in order to create a radio version that matched the experience of being there. What a stereo microphone records doesn't take into account the brain's ability to focus on a particular instrument that you may happen to be looking at, so we were able to embellish the stereo mix with the direct feeds of sounds James had been  looking at, all the time wary to preserve the linear integrity of the recording, all the sounds and silences, and to add nothing to the mix that couldn't be heard at that moment in time and space.

What resulted is a remarkable piece of music, a 37 minute journey from the top of the building to the bottom, taking in all the different areas, all the different performers, but with no knowledge of who would play when, or what or how. The temple bowls mixed with the violin and the lecture on mycology, the analogue electronics versus the autoharp, the two choirs singing against each other: the moments of musical overlap, creating freshly minted musical worlds, could not have been planned or composed, but by the rigorous application of chance processes. It's only one person's perspective on this mind-boggling event of course, and we make no claims to have pinned down the anarchic beast which is a Musicircus, but I hope you enjoy Cage's riotous vision of a new musical world.

As well as full mixed and multi-tracked radio recording, we sent our colleague Louise off with a pair of binaural microphones attached to her ears, for the full immersive experience -- here's what Louise heard.

• View over 150 pictures of the ENO/Radio3 Musicircus
• Find out more about John Cage
• All this week Late Junction is celebrating the centenary of John Cage's birth.
• Listen to the full Musicircus recording in Late Junction with Anne Hilde Neset from 11pm this Thursday evening.
  

Last week I received an email from Matthew Herbert asking if I could help him with a composition he was planning for BBC Prom 44. Matthew has worked with the London Sinfonietta before and he was asked to create a live remix of the prom.

The performers of Ligeti's Poème Symphonique, relaxing in the Royal Albert Hall Green Room before their performance.

I've recently been working with Matthew on the relaunch of a new Radiophonic Workshop and we've been working with The Space on a number of other related projects. For the live remix of Prom 44 Matthew had a clear vision of what he wanted, and he invited some of the members of the new Radiophonic Workshop, along with some people for the London Sinfonietta to help create the composition. There were 12 volunteers in total, we were each issued with a clipboard and pencil, and were asked to bring along a smart phone - it was the first time I've be told to make sure my phone was fully charged before attending a classical concert!

The piece, Small, Smaller, Smallest, is a comment on the way we all consume music today, using small handheld devices often with very iffy sound quality. Also how the ripping, file sharing and free download culture has changed the relationship between the audience, the performers and the composer. Finally how the mobile phone has changed the culture of concert going (with the danger of random ring-tones going off in concerts), and the change in mind-set we have when we attend concerts (we choose to stay in touch and share our experiences by social media, even as we listen or watch). The piece also democratises the composition process, inviting not only the 12 volenteers, but the whole audience to contribute. 

The clipboard was used to make a note of the recorded sections and are effectively a score of the composition.

The live re-mix would consist of recordings of the evening's performances made by 12 volunteers each using a mobile phone to make one short recording from the build up to the evening, and one recording from each of the 6 performances. The 12 volunteers would be situated in different places in and around the audience. The audience at the Royal Albert Hall would also be asked to contribute to the piece by sending themselves a SMS text message when cued by André Ridder, the conductor, therefore creating a ripple of around 800 SMS alert sounds to accompany the smartphone recordings. The original plan was for the 12 volunteers to play their 7 recordings from where they were located in the audience, but some testing revealed that Radio 3's microphones wouldn't pick up the mobile phones, so each volunteer made their way to the stage after Cage's 4'33 and was given a microphone.

After spending a geeky few minutes comparing field recording apps we set off to mingle with the audience and start our recordings. My choices for the 7 clips ranged from the backstage 3-minute warning to the Sinfonietta tuning up before a performance of Louis Andriessen's De Snelheid. Not to mention a 10 second clip of John Cage's 4'33. The performance of Small, Smaller, Smallest on stage worked well; the structure of the concert clearly audible in our performance and, though it was hard to hear how it sounded from the stage, feedback from both the live audience, and people listening on Radio 3 was very positive. 

View from the stage of the Royal Albert Hall

My experiments with sound tend to address more technical questions, but I very much enjoyed the sonic exploration of the live remix of Prom 44. The whole of Prom 44 is available to hear on iPlayer for a limited time.

Anthony Churnside is a technologist in the R&D audio team based at Salford

Bolt-Gurrelieder

Earlier this week, Phil Hall reported on the BBC Proms performance of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder from the orchestra's perspective. Now BBC Symphony Chorus soprano Carole Cameron gives the view from the choir seats ...

Well clearly this is the only gig in town tonight!

The first rehearsal found director Stephen Jackson, reminiscing about a previous performance, when he'd been demonstrating how he wanted a passage sung. The Narrator commented 'mmm, nice voice'. It was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau...

It can be seen as a 'cough and a spit' for us ladies of the chorus but what a spit! As soon as I see 'Farben Froh' in the score, I hear the voice of our former German language coach Geraldine Franks, fondly known 'Mrs Deutsch', intoning '23 double Rrrrrs and 23 double FFFFs please'. Tonight we're fortunate to have been coached by her successor Norbert Meyn, no mean tenor himself, and infamous in rehearsal for being inclined to take over from whoever is officially conducting, such is his enthusiasm.

This will be my fourth 'Gurrelieder' and it's still an absolute 'must do'. The first was particularly memorable: my father was in the audience and as he, and I, came back down to earth he said, 'Well, I never thought I'd see Hans Hotter on stage; I certainly never imagined my daughter would be on the same stage.'

But our line-up of soloists was definitely the best I've heard. We are over 450 performers, and as a result we've been in an unusual set of venues recently, not just seeking refreshment without a massive queue. Inevitably, when most of us were rehearsing at Cadogan Hall on Monday last week, one of our sopranos managed a two-minute guest appearance in a Mark Elder rehearsal in Maida Vale Studio 2, before realising that all was not well. On Wednesday we visited the Friends' Meeting House, near Euston, and on Saturday, Central Methodist Hall Westminster. On Sunday, the day of the performance, we invited all involved to our 'warm down': usually Stephen Jackson's notes on rehearsal but this time BBC Symphony Chorus Pimms in the Park and picnic. The ladies of Crouch End Festival Chorus won the football.

The week's best Jacksonism: 'Basses, I don't care what orifice that top E flat comes out of...' LOL!

The conductor, Jukka-Pekka Saraste last worked with us in 2005 on Rachmaninov's The Bells. He's dry, laconic even, but very clear. Sunday morning's rehearsal instruction was, 'Don't be too civilised in your singing. We could do it all mezzo forte, but....'

Stand, breathe: 'Seht': the sun - and the pitch - rises, adrenalin starts to flow. We rise above the 1st sopranos into the sun, perched on a top A, descending to the glorious, endless [breathe again] C major final chord. There are worse ways of spending your Sunday...

• Listen to the performance of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder.
• Find out about the BBC Symphony Chorus and how to apply to join.
• Visit the Proms website.

Richard Hawley and Joe Duddell rehearse with the BBC Philharmonic. Photo: Simon Pantling.

 The original thought behind the first festival came to me during a run along the Bridgewater Canal; was it possible for the BBC Philharmonic to appear on all the BBC's national radio networks in a three week period? It was and we had such a ball doing the first festival that a warm wind has been blowing behind the idea of another one. 

I loved that so many people, many of whom don't normally listen to orchestras, were wowed by the power and emotion of 90 musicians in a musical context that they found familiar.

For the next festival we are going to spread the live experience across the north of England in keeping with the vision for BBC North. We're taking the orchestra from Bridlington to Blackpool via Bradford, Salford and Sheffield with some of the best loved and most creative artists and producers in the UK.  We begin on BBC Radio 6Music (Station of the Year don't you know) with Sheffield's own Richard Hawley and his band. They've teamed up with composer Joe Duddell (a Salford boy through and through) to create an intriguing evening in Sheffield.  Richard has formulated for the first time a collaboration for his own band with orchestra that will set the standard for the whole festival.

Second up is Radio 5 live on Friday 14 September with Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode.  Our great 5 live colleague Rhian Roberts has been an inspiration for us and we both agreed that Simon and Mark's show in the first festival was outstanding; so we've created another film special this time featuring the music of James Bond. Rhian then coordinated Radio 2 (for a 'spy classics' Friday Night is Music Night), Red Button (to create an hour long show) and Radio Times (to run a vote for the nation's favourite Bond theme).

George Ergatoudis at Radio 1 had the vision to combine the Phil with Nero last year and thereby created a storm of interest that continues to this day.  This year he's attracted The xx for a similar journey (in Bridlington) for a live Zane Lowe show on Wednesday 19 September.  Young composer Alex Baranowski was their exciting choice to generate the orchestra score and he's been regularly attending the orchestra's concerts (lately our Bruckner Prom) to hear what they can do.  I know he's thinking hard about the different effects that he can use to create a special sound for the band.

In the first festival we worked with ace West End conductor Mike Dixon on a musicals evening for Radio 2; Mike was a huge hit with the Phil musicians and I was determined that we should work together again; he proposed a wide range of projects and the one that was perfect was Miles Davis orchestrated by the hugely talented Guy Barker with Guy's Jazz Orchestra.  We're taking the show to Blackpool on Wednesday 17 October and it'll be live on Radio 3.  Guy calls me regularly to update on his thinking and I know that he's written a 25' 'Kind of Blue' suite that promises to be iconic.

I'm particularly pleased that we're working with the Asian Network in Bradford (Monday 12 November) for the first time.  Asian Network's Neila Butt has proposed a celebration of the life and songs of Pakistani singer Noor Jehan.  Although she died in 2000, her recordings are a powerful testament to her artistry and we'll honour that legacy with the full orchestra performing alongside a group of remarkable Pakistani musicians.

Our Radio 2 date, Thursday 6 December, is so high profile it's a secret that I can't share with you....yet.  We're really buzzing that we'll be working with these superstars in our studio; they came to hear Nero with us last year and were so taken with the studio that they insisted we use that for this project.

Our last event is one that is close to my heart; for the past few months Radio 4 have been broadcasting editions of The Listening Project which are highly personal conversations.  Radio 4 commissioner Tony Phillips has asked producer Cathy Fitzgerald to draw together a range of these conversations around which composer Gary Carpenter can create a live orchestra score lasting half an hour. Life won't be the same after this one.

• Read more details about BBC Philharmonic Presents.
• Follow the orchestra on Twitter.
• Visit the orchestra's Facebook page. 

BBC Symphony Orchestra sub-principal viola Phil Hall says, if you've never heard the Gurrelieder, a treat awaits you on the iPlayer ...

If there is one piece of music to rival the huge scale of the Olympic Closing Ceremony, then it has to be Schoenberg's epic cantata on Danish legends, Gurreleider.

I have loved this extraordinary piece since student days when people who had seen a rare performance of it would talk about it with awe and wonder, as if they had seen Bigfoot or the giant Bamyan Buddhas.

Fortunately in the last 20 years the BBC Symphony Orchestra has had the rare pleasure of performing it three times, twice at the Proms, and last Sunday night was the fourth. The reason it is seldom done is the expense - the orchestra is larger than that required for Mahler 8 and there are almost as many singers.

But what I love most is the sheer beauty of the music; magical intimate moments sit alongside barnstorming battles with a sunrise ending that turns my legs to jelly. Late Schoenberg can be box-office poison but this work is early, deeply Romantic; think Wagner orchestrated by Mahler and you are close to his amazing sound world. Actually Schoenberg took so long to orchestrate the piece (10 years) that his style had changed to dodecaphonic (twelve-tone, or tone-row) by the time of the premiere in Vienna in 1911. In fact he famously sat through it scowling and refused to bow to the audience despite a rave reception!

But if you haven't heard this beautiful behemoth I would strongly urge you to catch it on the iPlayer just in case your legs go to jelly at the end as well ...

• Listen to Schoenberg's Gurrelieder
• Read the programme notes for the performance
• Visit the Proms website
    

Brixton man in the 1980s. Photo: Getty Images

In the early hours of the 18th January 1981, fire spread rapidly through a house in New Cross Road, London where Yvonne Ruddock and Angela Jackson were holding a joint birthday party. Thirteen young people died including Yvonne. Later in 1983, the suicide of Anthony Berbeck, who had been at the party and was affected by the memory of that night, brought the total number of dead to fourteen.

The deaths of those young people became a seminal moment in our cultural history. The tragedy, a still unsolved blaze at a house party, and its aftermath of protest and campaigning, set the tone for much that came after. The fact that no one in authority seemed to care forced the black community to unify, to find its voice in a way it hadn't before. It politicised people from all over the country. Thousands marched in protest through Central London. There had been other uprisings, but this was a line in the sand.

At the time of the fire I was in the second year at William Penn Comprehensive School, situated between Brixton and Peckham along the 37 bus route - the events had a profound effect on me. There was a definite shift in attitudes, perceptions and my own sense of purpose. Looking back, I wondered how I coped with what was happening around me. I was a soul boy listening to Luther Vandross and early hip-hop, but it was my sister who broadened my musical horizons by playing Lover's Rock. Lover's Rock was a hybrid of Jamaican reggae and American soul music that was popular in the soundsystems, the radio and on the record players in many a household. It was quintessentially black British and the songs were mainly about the pain of being in love. The success of Lover's Rock singers Donna Rhoden, Janet Kay, Carroll Thompson and Caron Wheeler (of the group Brown Sugar before she found worldwide success with Soul II Soul) suggested that pop stardom was possible for every young girl. While every young man wished they could be as articulate in matters of the heart as Peter Hunnigale and Trevor Walters. But really Lover's Rock gave young black Britons a way to cope with the pain of what was happening on the streets.

That pain became all too real in 1981 and some people have never been allowed to forget the events of that year, particularly those surrounding the fire on the 18th of January. While researching this play I interviewed survivors such as Wayne Haines, and relatives of those who died, such as George and Velvetina Francis who lost their son Gerry that night and still don't know how or why the fire started. With their blessing I organised a commemorative charity event of music, poetry and discussion in 2011 to mark 30 years since the fire, which was hosted by Kwame Kwei-Armah and featured the music of Janet Kay and Carroll Thompson at the Albany Theatre in New Cross. The event was attended by over 500 people, testimony to the strong feelings that live on in the community.

Like the music of the time, Lovers Rock is a play about an era in which black British identity came of age; the politicisation of the rebel generation. It follows two young men after the New Cross Fire - one drawn into the politics and one drawn into the music, but both ending up on the frontline of the Brixton riots. In the aftermath of the August Riots last year many reason were posited as to the cause. Lovers Rock suggests that the reasons may be more complex than David Cameron's view that it was 'criminality, pure and simple'.

Many young people today were borne out of the Lover's Rock experience, but as a musical genre Lover's Rock has remained underground. It still hogs my stereo - this time on mp3 rather than vinyl - and I hope this play will introduce it to this generation as well as the events in 1981 that I, and others, will never forget.

• Visit Drama on 3's Lover's Rock page
  
• Read Rex Obano's career history
  
• Find out more about Lovers rock - the music
  

The view from the Chorus - rehearsing in Colston Hall

Jon Parker is a member of the BBC Symphony Chorus. He wrote this post during rehearsals for Prom 23, which you can listen to online for the next four days. On Sunday he and the Chorus will be performing Schoenberg's extraordinary Gurrelieder in Prom 41 - Steve Bowbrick, Interactive Editor, Radio 3.

26th July: Piano Rehearsal.

While a certain torch is making its way towards Westminster, the BBC Symphony Chorus congregates in Maida Vale 2 for the piano rehearsal. To this point, we have had four rehearsals to learn Ireland's These Things Shall Be and Walton's Belshazzar's Feast with our Chorus Director Stephen Jackson. For many, Belshazzar is an old friend while the Ireland is almost universally unknown. However we have worked on them in much the same way, with text, intonation and dynamics high on the agenda.

Tonight we meet Maestro Otaka. This is our chance to have some one-on-one time with him so we jump into the detail. It's certainly tiring, but enjoyable, and after a final pep talk from Stephen it's time to battle with the Tube.

29th July: BBC Symphony Chrous goes to Bristol.

Today we are in Colston Hall in Bristol to join up with the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales. We use the rehearsal to combine everything we have been learning with getting used to taking cues from the dense orchestral texture. For Maestro Otaka and the (now) two chorus directors it is the first stage of balancing the three groups. Lots to be done...

31st July.

General Rehearsal: The orchestra and chorus are joined by Jonathan Lemalu and London Brass to add the finishing touches. Our task is to get used to the acoustics and to get used to projecting the text all the way to the gallery. Maestro Otaka works through the programme before Adrian Partington, Chorus Director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales, gives us some final notes.

Concert: Being a relative newbie to the BBC Symphony Chorus this is only my twelfth Prom (!), but performing to a full house at the Royal Albert Hall remains nothing but thrilling. This has been in the diary as my Proms 2012 highlight since we performed Belshazzar with Edward Gardner in December. It's so much fun to sing! I challenge any performer not to have an ear-to-ear grin at the end of it. Inevitably, the concert is over in a flash, and so after saying farewell to our Welsh colleagues, it's back to normality. Rehearsals for Gurrelieder continue on Friday. Watch this space...

• Tickets for Gurrelieder, performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra with the BBC Symphony Chorus and soloists, at the Proms can be bought online or you can buy a £5 Promenade ticket on the day from the box office at the Royal Albert Hall.
• Listen to Prom 23 online now in HD Sound or watch the BBC Four television broadcast on the iPlayer. Listen on Sunday to the live transmission of Gurrelieder in HD Sound on the Radio 3 web site.

Radio 3 has 2.04 million weekly listeners - compared to 1.9m last quarter and 2.17m last year. The network's share is 1.2%, from 1.1% last quarter and 1.3% last year.

So the discussion goes on... Is London empty or busy? Traffic getting easier or building again? Airports busier than ever with people leaving the UK or coping with arrivals? Museums and galleries visitors down on their normal numbers over the summer or doing well because of the bad weather?

At the BBC Proms we have still been attracting large audiences, even for the some of the less well known repertoire. It will be interesting to see what our final percentage attendance will be, but I suspect it will again be above 80% and when the Royal Albert Hall (capacity of over 5000) is packed for composers Gudmundsen-Holmgreen and Langaard you know that the Proms vision and the festival's unique audience are alive and well.

My mind turned to figures this morning as the radio industry listening for April to June was just announced. The Radio 3 figures have risen, mainly due to significant increases in our morning programmes, Breakfast in particular.

Of course, as I always say, our listening figures are only one measure of success. However, it is gratifying to know that, given the pressure on everyone's time and the increasing choices about how we spend it, the Radio 3 audience remains so loyal and that new listeners continue to discover the station.

Roger Wright, Controller of BBC Radio 3 and Director of the Proms

• RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research) is jointly owned by the BBC and commercial radio trade body the Radio Centre. Participating listeners are asked to record their radio listening in quarter-hour time blocks for one week. Listen to an explanation of the RAJAR system from Radio 4's Feedback programme last year.
• The RAJAR figures for 'linear listening', not including on-demand listening or podcasts, in a table.
• Read the BBC's press release and download the official RAJAR quarterly press release (PDF).
• Picture, 28 January 2009, by Adam Bowie. Some rights reserved.

She'Keymorovou on the Radio 3 stage at WOMAD 2012

Saturday at WOMAD 2012 and the Radio 3 stage has been alive with music to get world music lovers in the festival mood. An energentic Chrissy Cowley gave both festival goers and those listening at home a Celtic treat on the fiddle to start us off for the day. Later this afternoon She'Koyokh got the crowd dancing (including those of us backstage) with their combination of klezma and Balkan music. We are now enjoying the fantastic Breabach as the evening sets in.

On the rest of the site the Radio 3 team have been talking to the cream of the world music scene including Femi Kuti. Tune in from 10.30pm tonight to hear highlights of these interviews, excerpts from some of the performances and to catch Abdallah Oumbadougou with his fantastic Saharan blues.

Femi Kuti on the Open Air stage at WOMAD 2012

Melanie Fryer, Events Coordinator Radio 3 and the Proms

Listen live on Radio 3

Find out more about WOMAD here

As I write this I am waiting for Martin Creed's Bells to ring out over the country. And I am wondering how Danny Boyle is feeling this morning. For everyone who puts on events, there is always this moment just before, the quiet moment, when the stage is empty, just waiting for everything to begin. The moment when you think to yourself, goodness, will it all be okay! And you feel sick with anxiety! It's something you always think you will get better at but that feeling is always there, as intense as ever. But tonight is a whopping great big event like no other! So I can't imagine how everyone's feelng today, so I want to start by sending huge good vibes to Danny Boyle and wish him and his team all the very best of luck for the opening ceremony tonight. When it's all over Danny, please come to the Proms and chill out with us okay!

The other big event tonight for us is Daniel Barenboim and the West Eastern Divan orchestra performing their last concert in the Beethoven series at the Proms at 6.30pm. It's live on Radio 3 this evening and broadcast on BBC Two tomorrow night, together with a new documentary Barenboim on Beethoven, with the maestro himself, and the orchestral musicians and Tom Service talking us through the symphonies and why they are so special. The other concerts are on the iPlayer if you need to catch up. From the reaction in the hall this week, I think the audience won't let them leave tonight. You want to lock the doors and make them just keep on playing. The music-making is incredible, the precision of the playing out of this world, the interpretation of the music, just so powerful and moving. I do recommend you catch up with these performances on iPlayer.

Talking of chilling out at the Proms, the other night I want up to the gallery in the Royal Albert Hall. Great view from there, the hall looks so beautiful with the new lighting and stage design. The great thing to do up there is just lie flat out on the floor and let the music wash over you. It's a great place to be for the Proms.

I am now totally maxed out on my 3G on my iphone and turning to my lovely old radio at home, so next week in the evenings I will be on the sun (hopefully) lounger finally in my garden with the Radio on extension cable listening to Bach's B Minor Mass (Aug 2nd 7.30pm) and the Scottish Symphony doing Wagner and Bruckner. On TV we have Bach Live too on Thursday, Wagner live Friday and Handel's Water Music on BBC Two on Saturday night. God Bless technology.

The first time I heard Wagner's music live was years ago when I was working with Sir Peter Hall when he directed the Ring in Bayreuth with Sir Georg Solti. One of the many moments in my life when the privilege of working in music has been overwhelming. The English Ring was controversial and likely to be shot down. Bill Dudley the designer turned to Peter as they edged forward and took their curtain call expecting to be murdered by the audience - a general rule with The Ring cycle was: shot down first year, liked a little bit in second year, and third year hailed as the greatest Ring ever - and he whispered "it's only rock and roll".

Good luck to Danny Boyle and wishing you all a glorious Olympic opening weekend!

Jan Younghusband is BBC commissioning editor, Music & Events

• Listen to every prom live on BBC Radio 3 and in high-quality HD Sound online
• Details of every Prom, with programme notes, clips, pictures and links to every broadcast on TV and radio on the BBC Proms web site.
• All nine of the Beethoven Symphonies can be heard in full for thirty days in our 'Beethoven at the Proms' collection online.