The Verdi Requiem that ended this year’s Proms (before the Last Night high jinks) also began the London Symphony Orchestra’s new season at the Barbican. The same piece, but quite different performances.
The choirs contrasted by age. The Proms Youth Choir entertained at the Royal Albert Hall, its members drawn from conservatoires in the four constituent countries of the United Kingdom. The newly broken voices of the tenors and basses were responsive and athletic, the “Te decet” entry in the first movement, thrillingly keen-edged and lithe. The gentlemen of the London Symphony Chorus at the same point, however, being much older, were shakier in tone and less precise in their ensemble.

The orchestras also differed by the centuries of their instruments.