Shock! Albert Hall in 'good sound sensation'. Photograph: Graham Turner
Say you've just been to see a Prom and it isn't long before someone asks why you bothered. If the Albert Hall is famous for anything - beyond the fact that it played host to the first ever non-Japanese Sumo wrestling championship, naturally - it's for an acoustic so vast, messy and muddy that to call it barn-like seems grossly unfair to barns.
Last night, however, the Albert Hall had the last laugh. For a blissful few hours late in the evening Kensington's cavernous concert hall was transformed, courtesy of baroque supremo John Eliot Gardiner and his period-instrument group, from Victorian bath house to glittering Renaissance cathedral.
You presume Gardiner wasn't responsible for the gruelling heat and humidity - though it was a nicely authentic touch - but the remaining Venetian paraphernalia, a programme celebrating the city's rich musical culture at the height of the 17th century, was painstakingly planned. Close your eyes (and many did; this Prom finished late after midnight with temperatures still high in the 20s) and you could have been 700 miles away in St Mark's.
Strange and wonderful sights greeted us: a forest of white lines dividing the oval floor of the arena, penning in the Prommers but allowing a cast of 50 or so performers to move freely around the space. Multiple choirs and instrumentalists hovering at points around the building, perched on improvised stages and peeking out by the organ loft. From my eyrie high in the gallery, 100 feet above the floor, it all looked spectacular. Playing high priest for the evening, Gardiner presided, resplendent in black and tended by an acolyte clutching his personal crimson towel and a bottle of (holy?) water.
But the noise was the thing. Never have I heard the Albert Hall sound so utterly on song. As delicious wisps of music coiled up and around that enormous dome it felt like justice was finally being done to all those millions of litres of air. And as a rich thunder of applause rolled out at the end of the evening, it felt somehow cleansing, the fug and the stickiness of a muggy July evening momentarily dissolved. Even the traffic noise seemed to have stopped.
Which raises a question. Why isn't there more music performed at the Proms that makes a virtue of the building itself? I'm not talking about banning everything written after 1652 (tempting as it seems), or concentrating exclusively on specialised repertoire (though last night's esoteric programme was nearly packed out).
But perhaps it's time to acknowledge that one size doesn't fit all, that you can't pack everything in to the Albert Hall no matter how capacious. The Proms have had chamber concerts elsewhere for ages, and this year they're enlisting the Cadogan Hall in Chelsea for Saturday matinees. Maybe it's time for the festival to devolve and take its national responsibilities seriously, even - horror! - to flee London for spaces large and small across the country, spaces that actually suit the music being performed.
That way we'd keep the Albert Hall for what it's good at: music that actually suits the acoustic. And sumo wrestling.
