Thus spake the BBC:

There are 22 world premieres in 2012, the biggest number in recent years, and a further 14 UK or London premieres. There are 17 major BBC commissions, as well as an additional 10 short compositions commissioned as part of the John Cage celebration (17 August).

Sounds pretty good for new music doesn't it? Yet, I can't help but feel there is a slight lack of substance behind the figures:

Youth ensembles give the premieres of a number of BBC commissions during the season, including Charlotte Bray’s At the speed of stillness performed by the Aldeburgh World Orchestra under Sir Mark Elder (29 July), Elaine Agnew’s Dark Hedges, performed jointly by the Ulster Orchestra and Ulster Youth Orchestra of Northern Ireland, with soloist Sir James Galway, under JoAnn Falletta (4 August), and Nico Muhly’s Gait for the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain conducted by Vasily Petrenko (4 August).

In one weekend three BBC commissions receive their world premieres by national youth orchestras: Agro Alegría by Tim Garland, performed by the National Youth Jazz Orchestra under Mark Armstrong (10 August); Gavin Higgins’s Der Aufstand, premiered by the National Youth Wind Orchestra under James Gourlay (12 August); and Gavin Bryars’s After the Underworlds, presented by the National Youth Brass Band under Bramwell Tovey (12 August).

We have just covered 6 of the 22 world premieres. What does it say about the new music commissions that they are entrusted to these – admittedly very capable – young hands? A well prepared youth performance is certainly better than a hastily prepared professional rendition, yet composers surely have to bear in mind the relative inexperience of the players in the former circumstance. Compromises must be made which will inhibit their more extreme ideas, as will the fact James Galway has only been playing 'Danny Boy' for the last twenty years.

There is perhaps an even more important difference between youth and professional orchestras: the small matter of getting paid. If I were more cynical I might connect this with the sudden interest in our talented young people.

2012 also sees the first ever BBC commission given to a nonhuman composer. The Proms is delighted to announce a new work by popular animated character Wallace, as he presents his debut composition, My Concerto in Ee, Lad, at the children’s matinee Wallace & Gromit Prom conducted by Nicholas Collon (29 July).

At last! Some proper bloody new music. I love Wallace and dispute the statement that he is 'non-human'; I find him more real than most people I talk to every day.

I'm genuinely looking forward to that more than the following:

Earlier that same day, Bob Chilcott’s The Angry Planet is given its world premiere by The Bach Choir, BBC Singers, National Youth Choir of Great Britain and children from several London schools, conducted by David Hill, as the culmination of a major outreach project (5 August).

The world premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Canon Fever, commissioned by BBC Music Magazine to mark its 20th anniversary, will open the 2012 Proms season, conducted by Edward Gardner (13 July)...

Eric Whitacre makes his Proms compositional and performance debuts with a Late Night Prom including two world premieres: his own Higher, Faster, Stronger and his arrangement of Imogen Heap’s The Listening Chair, performed by the Eric Whitacre Singers, the BBC Singers and Imogen Heap (29 August).

Perhaps it is unfair to sandwich Turnage in there between these two choir gurus, but I am only going by form in the proms arena – his last piece I would charitably describe as 'worse than Beyonce'. Wallace has the upper hand in that this is his first piece and he has an excellent dog. Perhaps Imogen Heap will make Whitacre less vomilicious, like the good friend holding the hair from our faces.

That leaves the following:

...and there are three premieres in one Proms Saturday Matinee concert given by the Britten Sinfonia at Cadogan Hall: the world premiere of Brian Elias’s Electra Mourns and UK premieres of Michael Finnissy’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Gigue Machine performed by pianist Nicolas Hodges (11 August).

There are further UK premieres of works by Richard Dubugnon, Emily Howard, Rued Langgaard, Kaija Saariaho and Omar Souleyman.

Among further key BBC commissions, Nicole Lizée’s The Golden Age of the Radiophonic Workshop (Fibre-Optic Flowers), inspired by the work of Delia Derbyshire (of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop), is performed by the Kronos Quartet (24 July), while Thea Musgrave’s Loch Ness – a Postcard from Scotland is performed alongside James MacMillan’s Olympic Fanfare in a Prom given by the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Donald Runnicles (5 August).

Later in the season the BBC Symphony Orchestra performs Helen Grime’s BBC commission Night Songs (25 August).

Most of this seems like good solid fair, particularly the Britten Sinfonia concert which sounds like a riot. I would only cast a little doubt on the ‘genre’ fanfare.

Fanfares are the most reluctant kind of commission available to an orchestra. It seems they are saying: 'Yes! A new piece. But don't make it long. And please keep it light my dear. And of course make it loud! Oh yes! BOOM! BOOM! PARUMPAPUM! BOOM! The only thing I want to know at the end is that I've got G and T all over my lap'.

'Postcards' smack of something a little similar but we shall see.

Obviously, I hope that every moment of new music making is beautiful and ear-opening but from a pure paper standpoint the Proms is only half the new music friend it purports to be. I'm sure the somewhat-younger-than-me musicians will be great – as they always are at the Proms – but just two commissions played by professional symphony orchestras is rather too few for my liking.