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Florence and the Machine: Symphony of Lungs review – one crescendo of ecstasy after another
An appropriately maximal reading of debut album Lungs, made with Jules Buckley’s orchestra at Prom 69, provides a grand stage for Welch’s even grander voice
As the grand high witch of maximalism, the Proms is the ideal way for Welch to revisit the pained howl of Lungs, her 2009 debut album that wears its heartbreak like a scar. Girl With One Eye becomes a campy musical theatre number as Welch vamps around the stage and the bassoon channels You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch; the fluttering woodland flutes heighten the emotional warfare of My Boy Builds Coffins; the tidal wave of feeling crashing around during Rabbit Heart ratchets the crowd to their feet. Welch claims that her range has shrunk in the intervening years but you can rarely tell; the huge notes hit like a cannon firing, her head voice peaking with all the softness of a flurry of snow.
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