And did those feet in ancient time

[click to embiggen]

A long-standing tradition of ours here at Dolores Delargo Towers is to celebrate the time-honoured end of the "Summer Season" with that flag-waving, patriotic sing-a-long, the Last Night of the Proms!

Traditionally it formed a key part of the annual Proms in the Park concert that "our gang" gathered for in Hyde Park, but that no longer exists. And what with COVID and the Queen's death there hasn't been a full Last Night with an audience for the past three years, so the anticipation for Saturday's event was palpable.

It was worth the wait! Madam Arcati and I only watched the second half of the evening's entertainment (on the BBC, naturally), which opened with a world premiere of Laura Karpman's theme for the forthcoming MCU film The Marvels. [We noted that the entire Royal Albert Hall audience was wearing snazzy LED bangles that changed colour - red, white and blue, naturally - in time with changes in the music; someone must have sponsored them, so we assume it was Disney and that's why the unusual inclusion of that corporation's film score on the programme.]

Our star "players" cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and soprano Lise Davidsen were both utterly remarkable, taking the eclectic selection of openers Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Deep River, a Hungarian showgirl's song Heia, heia, in den Bergen and the aria Cantilena from Villa-Lobos' Bachianas Brasileiras in their stride, before the traditional "party" really kicked off!

The reliable lineup of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Chorus and BBC Singers proved once again that they are the best in the business, and "mistress of ceremonies" was American conductor Marin Alsop, commemorating the 10th anniversary of her being the first female conductor to lead the Last Night - and so the world-famous all-British finale-to-beat-all-finales began, of course, with the traditional "Sea Shanties".

All bobbed-out, it was time for the audience (and their klaxons and balloons and amusing costumes and all) to welcome Miss Davidsen back to the stage - wearing what could only be described as a scarlet battleship (she's 6'2", and towered over the orchestra, and especially the tiny Ms Alsop)! - to belt out Thomas Arne's most bombastic should-be-national-anthem:

An even bigger "audience sing-a-long" followed; Elgar's finest:

Marin Alsop's (mercifully short; some go on forever) "conductor's speech" focussed on her hope to see even more inclusiveness and diversity in the Proms, hailing its founder Sir Henry Wood as a pioneer of "progress" in this regard [to this day, there are always £8/10 tickets available to stand - or "promenade" - at every single one of the season's eight weeks of concerts, including this one] and, in thanking the participating ensembles in turn, elicited a huge ovation for the BBC Singers, only recently under threat from budget cuts.

This done, it was back to the patriotism [despite the presence of so many damned EU flags, given out for free by determined - and ineffably smug - campaigners for the "Rejoin EU Party"], with Hubert Parry/William Blake's "hymn", another national favourite:

And, with the (actual) national anthem God Save the King [the first time "King" has been sung at the Last Night since 1951] and the customary Auld Lang Syne (complete with red, white and blue ticker-tape), it was all over.

Same time, next year? I should bloody well think so!

---

PS We didn't see any footage of the rest of the season (although we listened to quite a few Proms on BBC Radio 3).

This would have been a great one to go and, see, I'm sure...

Vula Malinga - Tainted Love (Northern Soul at the Proms)

BBC Proms official site.