Anti-Israeli fanaticism reared its ugly head at the Proms last Thursday when demonstrators in the audience booing, shouting and singing attempted to disrupt a performance by the Israel Philharmonic. Although the musicians carried-on, the BBC took the unprecedented step of terminating the live broadcast. Due to the efforts of BBC security and personal action by audience members who weren't amused, order was restored to the extent that most of the recorded performance could be edited for later re-broadcast.
That re-broadcast took place earlier this afternoon and although the opening number, the Webern Passacaglia, was apparently too badly damaged to present, excellent performances of some of my favorites, the Bruch Violin Concerto, three selections from the orchestral version of the Albeniz Iberia(my favorite solo piano music)and an exciting Rimsky-Korsakov Capriccio Espagnol, plus an encore from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet were heard. Very worthwhile beautiful music, despite the ugliness of the situation, and available on demand for seven days at the
BBC iPlayer site .
