United Kingdom PROM 73 – Last Night of the Proms: Angel Blue (soprano), Sir Stephen Hough (piano), BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra, BBC Singers, (Neil Ferris (chorus/choir master) / Sakari Oramo (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London 14.9.2024. (CSa)
An autumnal chill in the air and falling leaves in London’s Hyde Park marked an early end to summer. It was also reminder that after eight weeks of remarkable music-making and some 90 concerts, the Last Night of the Proms was suddenly upon us. Some have condemned this celebrated musical fixture as a jingoistic and outdated ritual – one critic recently made the hyperbolic claim that its patriotic repertoire was ‘corrosive to the fabric of our nation’ – but many others take huge pleasure in its unique blend of gentle British humour and self-deprecating national pride.
The Promenade Concerts were founded 129 years ago by the great conductor Sir Henry Wood. His burnished bronze bust sits in front of the Royal Albert Hall’s mighty organ, its metallic gaze staring out towards the audience. Tradition dictates that it is polished and freshly garlanded for the last concert of the season. As in previous years, the 6,000-strong audience includes almost 1000 paper-hatted, balloon-carrying, party-popping ‘Promenaders’ who stand cheek by jowl in the emptied arena.
This year, thousands of hand-held EU flags were distributed at the entrances to the Hall. They almost outnumbered the undulating sea of waving Union Jacks in the auditorium, as if to emphasis the international flavour of the event. Although the first half of the programme was dominated by works from European and American composers, it opened with an unmistakably English composition: William Walton’s boisterous overture, Portsmouth Point. Walton claimed that it was conceived on the top deck of a number 22 bus. It was his musical response to an eighteenth-century cartoon by Thomas Rowlandson depicting a throng of inebriated quayside revellers. Jazz infused and brightly orchestrated, the piece was taken at a sprightly pace by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under their jauntily attired Chief Conductor Sakari Oramo. Elegant in white tie, tails and a striking Union Jack waistcoat, he was the Finnish embodiment of John Bull.
Portsmouth Point bubbles with energy and fun and makes for a good opening salvo. Nonetheless, it was a somewhat incongruous introduction to the next item on the agenda: excerpts from operas by Puccini in which the acclaimed California-born soprano Angel Blue joined the orchestra to sing two famous arias: ‘O mio babbino caro’ from Gianni Schicchi, and ‘Vissi d’arte’ from Tosca, between which we heard an enchanting Humming Chorus from Madama Butterfly. Blue possesses a velvet textured voice of immense power and dexterity, particularly in her upper register. Even when singing softly, its melting beauty carries to all sections of the Hall. The range of her vocal skills enabled her to depict Lauretta and Floria Tosca – two very different operatic heroines – in entirely different ways, and her glorious performance left us wanting more. Frustratingly, we had to wait until considerably later in the evening to get it.
In the interim, and inexplicably, a delicate and gently flowing account of Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane by the BBC Symphony Chorus and the recently reprieved BBC Singers was wedged between two short works from American composers, one living and one dead. The first, a jazz and ragtime infused world premiere called Hellfighters’ Blues by the young Carlos Simon. This tuneful and evocative five-minute work replete with blues and ragtime riffs memorialises the black members of the Harlem Hellfighters, a First World War Infantry Regiment whose mostly black soldiers were responsible for bringing jazz to Europe. The second piece, even shorter, was written by Charles Ives in around 1898. Prosaically entitled Yale-Princeton Football Game, it is autobiographical account and a startlingly modern musical imitation of a disastrous match in which the Princeton Tigers were trounced by the Yale team. The dissonant fragments of melody and complex irregular rhythms which Ives uses to suggest cheering crowds, marching bands, referees’ whistles and general pandemonium are difficult to coordinate, but Oramo and his players succeeded in a pitch perfect performance.
The orchestra turned next to a rather slight three-minute piece – Summer is Gone – in which the black English composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor set to music a poem of the same name by Christina Rosetti. For no ostensible reason, this was followed by another first performance: Grace Williams’s bland but pleasantly cheerful Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes, written over 80 years ago.
The concert’s first half formally concluded with the Andante from Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No.5, nicknamed the ‘Egyptian’. Composed during a visit to Egypt in 1896, Saint-Saëns was inspired by the Middle Eastern music he heard as he sailed down the Nile, and the concerto reflects the colourful exoticism of his trip. Sir Stephen Hough is one of the world’s leading pianists, and his navigation of that keyboard journey was unequalled. Mastering the rapid scales and subtle harmonic textures woven into the score, he miraculously conjured the impression of an Arabic soundscape on a standard western instrument. Good as his performance was, the fun didn’t really begin until his inevitable encore, a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious homage to Mary Poppins, with some quotations from Beethoven, Rimsky-Korsakov and Ravel cleverly worked in.
In a rather feeble and depressingly dumbed down start to the second part of the concert, the programmers decided to kick off with a new BBC commission and world premiere: Iain Farrington’s Extra Time. Extravagantly billed as ‘a celebration of sport and its ability to create a rousing collective experience’ this medley of well-known sports TV signature tunes aimed ‘to capture the various moods of a sports match: joy, passion, tension and humour’. There was some waving and swaying in the audience, most of whom had donned light-up LED bracelets provided by the organisers, but it was hardly celebratory. Some heavy-handed attempts at humour, such as the sight of a referee awarding a red card to an errant brass player fell flat. Matters didn’t improve given the somewhat puzzling decision to include Henry Mancini’s theme from The Pink Panther – a musical snack as nourishing as a large carton of popcorn and a Pepsi.
It was only when Angel Blue returned to the platform to sing In his Hands: Two Spirituals, a work specially composed for her by her accompanist, Stephen Hough, did things begin to look up. He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot were simply and movingly delivered and provided some much needed balm for the soul. Blue followed these prayerful songs with a playful extract from Los hijas del Zebedeo (‘The Daughters of the Zebedeo’), a rarely heard Spanish operetta by Ruperto Chapi. In a swift change of costume and personality, Blue as the coquette Luisa, sang the aria ‘Al pensar en el dueño de mis amores’ (‘When thinking about the owner of my loves’) with seductive charm while tossing red roses to members of the audience.
Despite bitter culture wars waged within and outside the BBC, Henry Wood’s arrangement of British Sea -Songs, including Thomas Arne’s Rule, Britannia, Edward Elgar’s ‘Land of Hope and Glory’, Hubert Parry’s Jerusalem and the National Anthem have survived censorship and continue to be performed. This longstanding tradition is for many, the highlight of the evening. Rising to the occasion literally and figuratively, the audience, young, old, black, white and representing many nationalities, formed a mighty chorus to sing along in fellowship and celebration. After an evening of questionable programming and uneven quality, the Last Night was back on form and the pleasure was palpable.
Chris Sallon
Featured Image: Last Night of the Proms 2024 © BBC/Mark Allan
Walton – Overture ‘Portsmouth Point’
Puccini – Three opera excerpts
Carlos Simon – Hellfighters’ Blues (world premiere)
Fauré – Pavane, Op.50
Ives – Yale-Princeton Football Game
Coleridge-Taylor – Summer is gone
Grace Williams – Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes
Saint-Saëns – Piano Concerto No.5 in F major, Op.103 ‘Egyptian’ – Andante
Iain Farrington – Extra Time (world premiere)
Henry Mancini (arr. Gavin Sutherland) – The Pink Panther – main theme
Stephen Hough – In His Hands: Two Spirituals (world premiere)
Ruperto Chapí – Las hijas del Zebedeo – ‘Al pensar en el dueño de mis amores’ (Calceleras)
Arr. Henry Wood – Fantasia on British Sea-Songs (with additional numbers arr. Bob Chilcott and Gareth Glyn)
Arne (arr. Malcolm Sargent) – Rule, Britannia
Elgar – Pomp and Circumstance March No.1
Parry (orch. Elgar) – Jerusalem
Arr. Britten – The National Anthem
Trad. (arr. Paul Campbell)– Auld Lang Syne
Agreed! Strange evening, with a dubious selection of music. I do not like Sakari Oramo’s conducting and his speeches are far too long and laboured. I’m sure only he appreciates his Scandinavian sense of humour. I don’t.