Reactions to Goldie's Prom 21

Sine Tempore, Goldie's composition for Saturday's Darwin-themed Prom 21, was bound to attract more attention than the average first composition performed on a Saturday morning in August.

Reviewers, in the main, were pleasantly surprised. Elisa Bray in The Independent wrote:

Goldie's drum 'n' bass could be characterised by its tendency to start off slowly and burst into high-energy sound. Sine Tempore, by comparison, was full of dynamics, and focused above all on rhythm and timbre.

and

You couldn't have expected Bach's counter-point and the composition, lacking harmony, benefited from its short length. However, it was remarkable how comfortably the piece sat alongside the other 20th and 21st century compositions showcased that day.

She gave Prom 21 four out of five stars.

Neil Fisher, in The Times, also awarded four out of five stars:

...solemn cellos give a voiceless chant, and a chorus (in this case the London Philharmonic Choir) emerges with a hazily declamatory response. Rattling percussion - deftly handled, though perhaps not as inventively as one might have predicted - underpins the progress to a sonorous climax.

and

The regret, perhaps because Goldie has had to rely on mentors to orchestrate and notate the piece, is that the remaining orchestral detail seems rather vague, and occasionally swamped by the choral and percussive climaxes.

Reviewing Sine Tempore on the Proms web site, listener musiccg, was sceptical about Goldie's contribution to the final piece:

Goldie's Prom piece was clearly far too well-produced to have been truly composed by him in its entirety, especially regarding the exact orchestration of the work. Why not acknowledge the co-composer(s)?

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A big well done to BBC for raising the awareness of the art of composing, however.

Rosignoli, another Proms web site reviewer, disagrees:

I think it's brilliant that Goldie was given the opportunity to display his instinctive and intuitive musical ability at The Proms; in fact, I agree with the judges' opinion last year that Goldie should have been the "Maestro" winner.

and

I say a big well done to Goldie for having the courage to tackle such an undertaking and for composing such a thrilling piece of music.

In a reaction recorded using Audioboo, Proms diarist Jon Jacob likes the piece but comes close to damning with faint praise:

I've got to say. I really enjoyed it. I think it's quite good. I really enjoyed the piece. And I'm quite surprised about that. Because I just didn't think I'd enjoy it much.

Listen to the rest of Jon's review here and follow him on Twitter here.

• You can review any Prom by clicking the 'Your Proms Reviews' button on any Proms page: for example, this one for last night's Prom 24.
• You can watch Classic Goldie, a two-part documentary about Goldie's collaboration with Ivor Setterfield to produce Sine Tempore, on the BBC Two web site for the next twelve days.
• Goldie's Prom, which also included works by Britten, Leifs, Williams, Brett, Pärt, Delius, Koechlin and Copland, is available on the iPlayer for the next six days (part one, part two).
• The picture of Goldie was taken during the filming of Maestro and is from the BBC's picture library, which is called Elvis.