Last Night of the Proms 2024, review: Stubborn tradition wins out in a gorgeous goodbye to a summer of excellence! B
The BBC showpiece featured some fun novelties – but as always it was Jerusalem that pulled at the heart-strings
All too soon the Last Night of the Proms was upon us, that uproarious party where audiences and performers let their hair down after eight weeks of serious music-making.
As always the home teams of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and BBC Singers were on the platform, led by the Finn who’s now an old hand at English Last Night jokiness, Sakari Oramo. As for the music, all the old favourites were reassuringly present and correct, proving there really is nothing in the world more stubborn than a Proms tradition. There was Rule Britannia, hanging in there despite years of condemnation, belted out lustily by the packed house without a trace of embarrassment. There was Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea-Songs, there was Jerusalem. Flags of all nations were waved, and balloons popped noisily at the most inappropriate times.
In his speech from the podium Oramo reminded us how this summer we’ve been entertained with two sorts of excellence, one sporting at the Olympics and one musical, at the Proms. If only he’d gone on to say that although sporting excellence has been handsomely supported classical music is increasingly starved of resources, even though it too brings joy to millions.
The Last Night inspired patriotic jollity outside the Royal Albert Hall Credit: JULIAN SIMMONDS
Fun though the Last Night is, the mission to educate and broaden tastes that is the perennial aspiration of the Proms is still there, liberally coated with charm and humour so it can’t hurt. Have you ever heard of Spanish composer Ruperto Chapí? No me neither, but I was pleased to hear his song “When I think of the Mistress of my Loves”, lifted from one of his numerous zarzuelas
Alongside these novelties were two new newly commissioned pieces. Carlos Simon’s Hellfighters’ Blues paid bluesy homage to the first all-black jazz band to tour Europe, while Iain Farrington’s Extra Time was a brilliant mash-up of TV sports themes.
No Last Night is complete without its star guests, and this one had two. American soprano Angel Blue gave us beautifully poised, tender renditions of Puccini’s O mio babbino caro and Vissi d’arte, and gave a naughty sultriness to that Spanish song. Pianist Sir Stephen Hough made Saint‐Saëns’ so-called “Egyptian” piano concerto seem swooningly exotic, and accompanied Angel Blue in his own harmonically rich arrangements of two spirituals. The BBC Chorus and Singers shone in Fauré’s gravely beautiful Pavane, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra was energised and vital throughout. What troopers they are.
The most beautiful moment of the evening came from the BBC Singers, in Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s achingly sad Summer is Gone. The wittiest came in Stephen Hough’s encore, a brilliant clever arrangement of tunes from the Sound of Music mingled with bits of Beethoven and Ravel. But as always it was the massed rendition of Jerusalem at the end that really tugged the heart-strings.
