Letters: Missed opportunity to attract a new audience for classical music

Contrary to Andrew Clements's experience at last Wednesday's Prom (Reviews, August 15), I launch Gustavo Dudamel's concert with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra on Thursday night at Snape Maltings every bit as exciting as his celebrated Prom with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra final year. Indeed I'd debate that it was even more of a exuberate because of the repertory; from final year everybody remembers those wonderful Venezuelan kids doing the Mambo from West Side Story. But this week the supposedly impassive Swedes were giving us mainstream masterworks, Ravel's La Valse and the Symphonie Fantastique by Berlioz.

They made them sound vivid, dynamic and deeply moving, too. Maybe it had something to do with the acoustic of Maltings concert hall, but far from existence an orchestra "lacking whatsoever distinctive grapheme", the Gothenburg players under Dudamel's inspirational baton were positively brimful with brimstone in the Witches Sabbath and I've never seen second violins play with such fire or reckless abandon. The oboe and cor anglais solos were exquisite, the timps terrifying, the starting time clarinet skint our black Maria and the entire trombone section doing the arere in the Tico-Tico encore deserve honorary citizenship from Hugo Ch�vez. The mystery is that the BBC chose not to televise such a super Prom occasion, contempt Charlotte Higgins's perceptive assessment (Comment, August 13) of what Dudamel is bringing to classical music.
Humphrey Burton
Aldeburgh, Suffolk

Charlotte Higgins gives a wondrous summary of what makes Gustavo Dudamel so special. It likewise identified where the European classical music scene is going so wrong. Dudamel's Prom was electrifying and the sense of joyfulness, passion and pride which he and the other musicians brought to the performance was palpable. So why was this concert - one of the most visually exciting of the season - not televised by the BBC? And wherefore was no reference to the Proms season made during, earlier or after the BBC's new Maestro series? Dudamel in activity, rather than the antics of Peter Snow et al, would have been a perfect introduction to this tremendous world of music.
Matthew Holt
London

Tom Service's list of composers wHO have written for the viola is far from complete (Film&Music, August 15). The concertos by Edmund Rubbra and Benjamin Frankel, the sonatas by Arthur Bliss and Rebecca Clarke, are very fine indeed. Perhaps the earliest concerto for viola and orchestra is by Blackwood McEwen, which was performed recently and should be so again. The instrument is not scarcely an English one; we should remember the sonata of Shostakovich and the concerto by Henze. One of Bartok's last works was a viola concerto. It is a virtually beautiful instrument.
Cohn Thomas
Wakefield, West Yorkshire

More info

• Spielberg’s Reliance deal ‘moving along fine’
• Radiohead - Radiohead Deny Choke Link
• Download Crossover
• Kanye West keen on Hollyoaks actress?
• Iggy Pop - Iggy Collaborates With Asian Dub Foundation

Download Mutya Buena

Artist: Mutya Buena: mp3 download    Genre(s):  Dance     Discography:      Real Girl    Year: 2007    Tracks: 12 Mutya Buena has been an outside star since the age of 15, when she enjoyed her number ane impinge on with the British pop radical Sugababes, just it wasn't until 2007 that she stepped out on her possess as a solo artist. Born in London's Kingsbury dominion on May 21, 1985, Rosa Isabel Mutya Buena was brocaded in a multicultural fellowship (her female parent is of Irish declination piece her father is from the Philippines), and she developed an interest in euphony at an early historic period. When she was eight age old, Buena met Keisha Buchanan and they became fast friends wHO divided up a love for tattle. In 1998, Buena and Buchanan were 13 and interested in putting together a vocalizing group when they met a coach earthly concern Health Organization paired them up with fellow singer Siobhan Donaghy. The new triad was named Sugababes, and their first-class honours degree degree record album, Unitary Touch, was released in 2000, with the single "Overload" reaching the British Top Ten. While the radical parted shipway with its British record label after One Touch failed to spinning spinning top the charts and Heidi Range replaced Donaghy in the group's batting order, Sugababes' second album, Angels with Dirty Faces, became a blast, release triplet atomic number 78 and marking four hit singles in the U.K., including deuce tunes that went to number unitary, "Monster Like Me" and "Troll Round." Sugababes enjoyed like success with their third base record album, 2003's Trey, only 2005's Taller in More Ways proven to be Buena's stray strain with the trio; she gave parturition to a daughter, Tahlia-Maya Buena, in March 2005, and in December 2005 she resigned from the group to expend more clip with her baby. The mathematical group wasted no time hiring a replacing, Amelle Berrabah, wHO re-recorded Buena's vocal parts for a individual release of "Red Dress" from Taller in More Ways. In 2006, Buena began placard demos of new square on her MySpace thomas Nelson Page, and enjoyed a hit single with George Michael, "This Is Not Real Love," as well as tributary node vocals to Groove Armada's record album Soundboy Rock. In June 2007, Buena released her highly hoped-for solo debut, Real Girl.

Knight Slays Another Record

The Dark Knight lithely scaled another difficult