Boulez at 100, the Proms at 130 • Andrew Ford

Boulez at 100, the Proms at 130 • Andrew Ford

There’s a story about Hubert Parry, King Charles’s favourite composer, hearing Arnold Schoenberg’s atonal Five Orchestral Pieces Op. 16. It was in 1914, two years before Parry composed “Jerusalem” to William Blake’s words. The concert was at London’s Queen’s Hall and Schoenberg himself was conducting the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra. At the end of the performance, a young Adrian Boult felt a thump on his shoulder and there was the elderly Parry. “…