Florence Welch was in her late teens and early twenties when she wrote Lungs. The gloriously theatrical debut by her musical act Florence + the Machine, first released 15 years ago, is the subject of Prom 69, “Symphony of Lungs”, a joint effort from Welch and Jules Buckley and his Orchestra. The album’s title spoke both to its breathless energy – Welch, in the event’s programme, describes it as “truly an exhalation and a gasp… a cacophony of ideas and influences” – and to the all-powerful vocalist it introduced us to. Its richly instrumented songs, which feature harps, choral arrangements and layers of heavy drums (Buckley jokes: “No percussion was harmed during the making of this record!”), made Welch, with her flowing pre-Raphaelite hair and startling range, a high priestess of gothic melodrama, from the glittering euphoria of “Dog Days Are Over” to the menace of “Girl with One Eye”. They have more than enough texture, atmosphere and heart to earn the privilege of imaginative orchestral reinterpretation.
Emerging to the thundering percussion of “Drumming Song” behind a procession of singers in burgundy robes with lungs embroidered on their chests, Welch appeared draped in flowing scarlet lace and silk, sleeves trailing the ground as she walked. Thus began a thrilling two hours of uninterrupted emotion. Whether hushed and intimate or in full kaleidoscopic crescendo, the set careered from despair – the full-throated cry of “Howl”, a spare, slowed arrangement of “Hurricane Drunk” that spotlights Welch’s voice – to joy, Welch frolicking around the stage to an organ-inflected reworking of “You’ve Got the Love”. Even the sonically thinner tracks were given new depth: “I’m Not Calling You a Liar” lifted by strings, harpsichord and high harmonies; “Kiss With a Fist” transformed by an aggressive fiddle solo; “Girl With One Eye” now appropriately winking, as pastiche-y as something from A Series of Unfortunate Events.
One of the great pleasures of seeing a pop star in a classical setting is the shift in atmosphere: for much of the performance, the audience in the Royal Albert Hall was seated and almost reverentially quiet, allowing every instrument to be heard, until the effervescence of a shimmering, brassy “Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)” forced everyone out of their seats. The most intense sequence comes at the end, as climactic reworkings of the album’s twinkling songs, “Cosmic Love”, “Between Two Lungs” and “Dog Days” rolled into each other, with exquisite instrumental interludes. “This was an album created with so much feeling – it was about feeling. I never thought anyone could add more feeling to it,” Welch told the crowd. “When I first heard Jules’s orchestrations I cried.” Together, the two have created something new, with higher stakes and cinematic urgency: part film score, part pop concert, totally euphoric. At the end of the melancholy last track “Falling”, all harp and propulsive choral percussion, Welch delivered the final word –“grief” – as a quiet outward breath. The lights cut out, plunging her into darkness, and the audience audibly inhaled in surprise: an exhalation, and a gasp.
[See also: PJ Harvey’s songs of England]
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This article appears in the 18 Sep 2024 issue of the New Statesman, What’s the story?