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Social media, for all its faults, is also a force for good and can throw up unexpected encounters and delights. One such gem is Andy Lewis’s Proms blog, which I discovered via the music critic of The Spectator, Richard Bratby.

Andy Lewis is blogging about every single Prom of this year’s season, mostly via the broadcasts on BBC Radio 3. He hasn’t missed a single one and is now in the home straight, as it were – the final week, and the close of this year’s at the Last Night of the Proms.

What is so wonderful about Andy’s blog is that it’s not trying to be a serious critique or dry academic appraisal of each concert, but rather a personal reaction to and reflection on the music. He publishes his posts soon after each concert has taken place and as a consequence, his writing is fresh and spontaneous, entertaining, engaging and intelligent (and it reminds me of how and why I started blogging, back in 2010).

I caught up with Andy to find about more about his motivation for writing about the Proms and what he’s enjoyed in this season’s programme….

What made you decide to blog about every single Prom of the 2025 season?

It came about for a few different reasons. I was taken with the premise of the Proms; the fact that it is still possible to buy a ticket on the day for just a few pounds. I used to think to myself, ‘I’d be at the box office every morning if I lived around here.’ This triggered an ambition of one day attending every Prom at the Albert Hall, and this idea has laid dormant in my mind for years. I like to keep myself occupied, and this year my diary was nearly empty for the eight or so weeks when the Proms were happening. To fill my free time, I decided I would ‘attend’ every Prom, whether it be watching it on TV, listening on the radio, or actually getting down to the Royal Albert Hall in person. To make it more meaningful, I decided to create a record of it – hence the idea of the blog. As the weeks have progressed, the blog has also evolved into including little diary snippets from my daily life. If I’m still alive and well in thirty years, it will hopefully be interesting (for me) to read it back. Maybe my opinions on things will have changed by that time. Maybe I’ll be living a completely different life.

Have you attended/followed the Proms before this year?

I had only ever attended one Prom before, and I can tell you exactly which one it was!

It was Prom 48, Sunday 21st August 2016. The programme was Reflections on Narcissus by Matthias Pintscher to start, and then the second half was Mendelssohn’s theme to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As I remember it, the music was blended with pop-up dramatic performances in different areas of the hall. Going to this Prom was what initiated my desire to see all the acts in one given year, but I had not gotten round to it until now.

What have been the challenges and pleasures of this project? 

The pleasure has been discovering new composers, and getting a deeper understanding of composers I only half-knew before. Additionally, looking up the history and origins of the Promenade concerts themselves has been fascinating. In terms of challenges, it has often been exhausting to keep up with the schedule on a daily basis. Early in the run, I was having doubts as to whether I would be able to keep up with it all. If I miss a Prom one day, the momentum will very quickly snowball against me, so I need to make sure I am on top of blogging every day; trying to keep my writing fresh, avoiding repetition where possible, and keeping my grammar in reasonable check against a tight schedule.

And what have been the stand-out moments/performances for you?

It has honestly all been great and varied, but if you really tortured me I think I would say that the best Proms, for me, have been the ones that took me by surprise – those Proms that I thought were going to be boring and difficult to document, but turned out to be the exact opposite. Who would have thought that ‘100 Years of the Shipping Forecast’ would turn out to be so contemporary and engaging? There were packets of surprises hidden in the ‘Bruce Liu plays Tchaikovsky’ Prom – I was gleeful at the inclusion of Maple Leaf Rag amongst others. And Joe Hisaishi’s Proms debut introduced me to music I already knew. Music in the Studio Ghibli productions such as My Neighbour Totoro offer something gorgeously meditative.

Why do you think the Proms is “the world’s greatest classical music festival”?

I think it’s a combination of accessibility, variety, diversity, and longevity. The fundamental idea of the festival is that it opens up classical music to your ‘average Joe’ like me. I can grab a ticket for £8 (in 2025) and enjoy an evening of world-class entertainment. The variety of the performances across the summer weeks makes sure there is something for everyone. The diversity on the stage has ensured the Proms have kept up-to-date with the world around us, and this in turn has kept the Proms running for as long, and successfully, as they have been.

What would you say to people who are unsure about classical music or who have never attended a Prom before?

I would say, ‘don’t be afraid of getting classical music wrong’. If you enjoy what you hear, go and see it played live, just like you would a pop or rock act. Even pass comment on it if you dare to do so. There may well be a bunch of Oxbridge academics looking back at you like that Leonardo DiCaprio meme, but the truth is that music is subjective and – when offering an opinion on it – they are as clueless as the rest of us.

Would you do it all again in the same way for next year’s Proms? 

Right at this moment I would say absolutely not! However, I do think I have opened a new relationship with the Proms, and in future years I will be more liable to be looking through the catalogue, choosing which Proms I would like to watch, listen to, or attend.

With regard to my writing, this is likely to be a one-off. But I would never say never. It would be nice to do something with a similar twist. For example, another one of my cultural challenges has been to watch every Shakespeare play, performed live. At time of writing I am on thirty-one plays, seen at different venues around the country. Given the number of operas based on Shakespeare and his characters, it could be an idea to review them with an amusing twist, comparing a production at the Royal Opera House to, say, the time I saw the same play at Gordale Garden Centre.

My name is Andy Lewis, I am thirty six years old. From the Wirral but living and working in Runcorn. I work in Medical Information for a multinational healthcare company, and in my spare time I like to attend rock concerts and theatre. I also play guitar, piano and harmonica. I am a music lover with my main genre being blues-rock, but I do also love classical and orchestral music.

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Read Andy’s BBC Proms Marathon 2025 blog

Andy Lewis

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This site celebrates its 15th birthday this month, a fact I find slightly hard to believe. It began as a kind of online practice diary for me: a few years previously, I had returned to playing the piano seriously after an absence of a quarter of a century, and by the time I started writing this blog, I was taking lessons with a master-teacher and preparing for a professional performance diploma. I used the site to ponder issues and challenges around piano playing which I was facing myself, in the hope that others might find the articles helpful. Alongside this, were articles about repertoire, piano teaching (I started teaching in 2006), concert and CD reviews, and other more esoteric musings on the piano and those who play it.

Since then, it has evolved and developed into a kind of online magazine, with what I hope is an interesting variety of content, by me and by other writers.

But it’s not just about the articles. Through this blog, I have forged meaningful connections and friendships, both online and In Real Life (you know who you are!); I’ve had the privilege of meeting some of the great musicians of our time, at their concerts and other events; and, perhaps most interestingly (because this was never an intention), my blog has led me to my current role as a publicist working with classical musicians and music organisations – a role which has come about entirely through the reputation of this site. The blog has also given me other writing opportunities – as a reviewer for Bachtrack.com from 2011 to 2018, a contributor to The Schubertian (the journal of The Schubert Institute UK), Classical Music and Pianist magazines, a regular writer for InterludeHK (since 2015), teaching notes for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music and Trinity College London, and, more recently, programme notes for the Barbican and Bridgewater Hall. But it is this site where the writing journey began…..

I am enormously grateful to everyone who reads, shares, comments upon and contributes to this site. Without you, I would probably just be shouting into the ether…..

You have been an inspiration to others of us, and your site is rightly established as a leading page for classical piano news and views

PIANODAO

If you would like to contribute a guest article to this site, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you again for your support of The Cross-Eyed Pianist

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Guest post by Doug Thomas

There is more to being a musician than simply creating and/or performing music.

Musicians are here to educate too. They are the professionals, the experts — and they should share their knowledge and wisdom with the rest of the world. It is a duty for them. The listeners in fact do not know as much they think they do, and musicians are here to help guide them towards what is true. Musicians should promote quality and help the listeners distinguish their taste. In the cultural world, the musicians’ role is of utter importance, as musicians are also educators. 

In fact, musicians are on a constant mission. They are indeed, all in their own ways, educators, whether they do it consciously through teaching, or unconsciously by the mere act of composing and performing their music. Each work, each performance is an opportunity to educate the listeners. To promote new sounds and ideas.
Musicians spend a lifetime understanding the language of music, the history of music and deciding what the future of music is. They are the direction-takers and decision-makers, and they should remain as such. For music is to grow and develop, to uncover new territories, to surprise and discover the unknown.  And somehow resist the human nature of wishing for comfort and repetition; even in art. 

Therefore, musicians should not create what the listeners want; this is a mistake that is done too often. Musicians must not bend to the wishes of their listeners. They must not accept familiarity and repetition of ideas. Musicians should carefully decide what material to create; what message and information, as well as emotion, to bring to the listeners. Their role is of utmost importance. They are the drivers of music progress. They are the bringers of novelty.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

To learn, listening is not enough. One has to practice and devote. And sacrifice. And it is in the sacrifice that musicians do — the sacrifice of time, energy and attention — that they automatically become leaders and influencers. It is this sacrifice which places the true musicians in front of their audience. Music takes devotion. And if the price is high, the reward is immense. 

Today the concept of musicians as educators is more important than ever as they often forget that they are first and foremost artists — rather than perhaps industry actors. Their role is to create, perpetuate, educate and through this improve the cultural world. Their role is to guide and lead. 

Doug Thomas is a Franco-British artist based in London.

His main medium of expression is music; since founding NOOX — or North of Oxford St., his own production studio — in 2015, Doug has composed, performed, recorded and produced multiple projects, both featuring his own music and other artists’ too. Additionally, he has worked with multiple independent labels and collaborated with artists from other disciplines. 

An aspiring polymath, Doug also ventures in the world of visual arts, through photography and various sketching works. He also designs his own project’s artworks and images. Finally, Doug writes articles, reviews and often interviews his musical peers.

Doug is a lover of food and drink, and this often appears in his universe too.

“Music allows me to express ideas and feelings in a unique way. Each piece I compose is an attempt in finding balance between intellect and beauty, within the limits of my own language and experience. More than a language, music is a way to engage with the above.”

doug-thomas-home

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Writing about music is like dancing about architecture

Oft quoted, frequently mis-attributed, this statement nonetheless brilliantly captures the difficulty of writing about something abstract, what Ferruccio Busoni called ‘sonorous airs’ – the music itself.

There’s an over-abundance of writing about music today – academic, analytical, political, sociological, not to mention a wealth of criticism and reviews of concerts and recordings, programme notes,  ‘think pieces’ and celebrity interviews and profiles. But this article is not about these kinds of writing about music; it is about the difficulty of putting the experience of music into words.

Music resists being described in language because it is very hard to convey the abstract aural experience of sound in words. This is one of the things that I – and countless others – love about the experience of music: it defies description because it is deeper than words.

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.

Victor Hugo

The problem with writing about classical music is that the artform has existed for too long in a rarefied atmosphere, set apart from other musicks. Tradition and reverence have surrounded classical music with an aura of “specialness”, a distinction which is still continually emphasised by the specialist language and vocabulary used when talking or writing about music. Unfortunately, for many people this kind of specialist technical language is often inaccessible and off-putting; it also contributes to the notion that classical music is “elitist”, for a select, educated few. Until fairly recently, the way music was written about in newspapers, magazines, programme notes and even CD liner notes was either incomprehensible or little use in helping the reader decide whether or not to explore a particular work.

For the general listener, would-be audience member and classical music ingénue, the only way to write about music in a way which brings it to life is to write from the heart. This may sound rather fey or simplistic, but music is about the full gamut of human emotions and experience. We don’t engage with it because it is scholarly, rarefied or elusive; we engage with its because it elicits an emotional response in each of us. It seems incredible to me how politely we often present this extraordinary, heart-stopping artform to its potential audience.

To write convincingly about music, one must engage in lateral thinking to create startling images and metaphors to describe the indescribable in a way which somehow conveys the emotional impact the music has on the writer and brings the experience of hearing it to life for the reader. (Perhaps the greatest compliments I have been paid for my concert reviews is “you made me feel as if I was at the concert with you”.)

But there’s more, for in addition to the emotional experience, one must also try and capture the aural one. What does the music sound like? Musicians have a common language of terms such as legato, staccato, portamento, pizzicato to direct them to the sound effect the composer desires, but to the non-specialist listener/reader translating staccato simply as “detached” (its literal translation) is not sufficient. Staccato can be light, delicate, punchy, percussive, crisp, snappy, spiky…. Similarly legato (literally smoothly or connected) is not confined to one simple description. Then there are the instruments themselves, each with their own distinctive voice: strings which tremble and shimmer, bright metallic brass, the lustrous and mellow clarinet, the rich growl of the lower bass of the piano….

Many of the words used to describe music are drawn from other walks of life – art or nature, for example – to create metaphors for the experience of hearing and playing music. The language of architecture in particular can be useful in describing music’s structures and motifs: arabesques, curlicues, filigree, arching, soaring. Or more physical terms: bouncing, jogging, stamping, limping, dancing, throbbing, breathing, sobbing. Or adjectives drawn from weather: showering, thunderous, misty, dripping, rumbling, splashing.

We often talk about ‘colour’ in music, often in relation to dynamics, from the most delicately nuanced pianissimo to bold fortissimos – and all the subtle shadings in between. Then there is light and dark – ‘chiaroscuro’ – bright, hazy, shimmering, veiled harmonies, plangent tenebrous chords….

Thus the writer must find metaphors and adjectives which amply describe the structure and sounds of the music, the experience of hearing it and the emotions it aroused in a way which captivates the imagination of the reader and avoids clichés. Herein lies the difficulty: an overly liberal sprinkling of adjectives and metaphor can obscure the meaning of the words – and also the music – resulting in florid, purple prose, such as this:

[his] diminuendi could attenuate a note as gently as a thinning fountain that slowly makes slender its spurts

For those of us who write about music, we face the challenge of whether words can really convey music, or if music can be revealed through the medium of language. The secret of any good music writing – whether it’s a puff piece in a concert programme, an in-depth piece of analysis, a programme note or a review of a concert – is that it should make you want to hear the music (or make you glad you didn’t have to hear it!). Either way, the writing should invite and inspire and pique your aural curiosity, not baffle or alienate.

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