Of all the places the Proms has visited this year in its new series of off-site concerts, this was surely the furthest from the Royal Albert Hall – in spirit if not in distance. One level below the roof in a disused multistorey car park in south-east London, the resident Multi-Story Orchestra played an hour-long programme of Steve Reich twice, each time to a sold-out audience of about 750.
The three works, from the late 1970s and early 80s, started with flautist Hannah Grayson in Vermont Counterpoint, swapping flute for alto flute or piccolo and weaving brief lines into the thick texture of her own multitrack prerecording. Conductor Christopher Stark led a dozen or so players in Eight Lines, in which the unrelenting energy of two pianos seems modulated by the changing strings and wind – ideas that find a kind of conclusion in Music for a Large Ensemble, in which short, snappy lines stretch into bigger gestures, then into a slow, deep groove, and back again.
The music’s aesthetic was reinforced visually by the concrete grid of the ceiling and the views to either side: Bussey building and railway tracks to the left, Square Mile skyline to the right. And while that low concrete ceiling concentrated the sound into an intense, toe-tingling mass, details were still audible, even amid the hiss of passing trains. For those present, I doubt this music will ever sound as good in a comfortable, conventional concert hall again.
• The Proms continues until 10 September.
