My fantasy Proms lineup

[Seán]

Not mine actually, it's the Guardian's, Tom Service article:

I'd like a complete Mahler symphony cycle and the Albert Hall turned over to a three-day sonic experiment. How about you?

It's almost that time of year again. Two weeks tomorrow, Roger Wright will announce his new Proms season, so there's a still a few days left to play everyone's favourite game of Fantasy Proms Predictions. Now, if you're lucky, there are ways of jumping the gun a wee bit: press releases which occasionally let slip that this or that artist has a date in South Kensington in the summer, composers whose commissions have been agreed for years – or potentially meeting an instrumentalist who may or may not be following up Stephen Hough's cycle of Tchaikovsky piano concertos last year with another concerto survey.

There are a couple of Proms things I do know about in advance for various arcane professional reasons, but the broad sweep of the season is still shrouded in mystery for me. Will this season be gripped by anniversary-itis? Will Wright continue the three-part Proms that have been one of his signatures of the last couple of seasons – some more successful than others? And how will the Proms follow up the big promotional and popular successes of the last couple of years: the Doctor Who, Bollywood and MGM musicals Proms? Even more importantly, which composers has Wright commissioned this year? And which of the big international orchestras will grace the Royal Albert Hall, the world's weirdest but best-loved concert venue, this summer?

Until we know for sure, there's time to dream. Given Radio 3's recent completist fetish, how about a complete Mahler symphony cycle (any of the big choral symphonies would make an imposing First Night of the Proms, a return to the choral spectaculars of previous seasons)? Or what about the complete works of Pergolesi (one of the less-celebrated anniversaries of this year), a complete survey of 80-year-old Stephen Sondheim's musicals, or the complete works of Chopin arranged for orchestra? OK, that last one was a terrible idea, but what about Schumann? The composer has been badly served in his bicentenary and the Proms would be the perfect place to put on his late choral pieces: those strange, seductive oratorios and spiritual dramas such as Des Sängers Fluch, Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, or Scenes from Goethe's Faust – works we hardly ever have the chance to hear in the concert hall.

For new music, I'd like to see the Royal Albert Hall turned into an arena for spatio-sonic experimentation, and I'd devote the whole building for three days to composers working at the cutting edge of live electronics. They would be charged with making the most of the 360-degree, surround-sound possibilities of the hall, with each day of installations, performances and world premieres climaxing in Stockhausen's Carré, Boulez's Répons (have a look at a tiny Boulez conducting it from a "cimbalom cam" at last year's Lucerne festival) and Nono's Prometeo. It's almost certainly going to happen ... Well, we'll find out on 22 April. In the meantime, what would your fantasy Proms lineup be?