Prom 76 (8.9.12): Last Night of the Proms 2012

[mikealdren]

Beautiful voice, but I don't like his vibrato much: you could park a bike in it.

Unfortunately it was Nicola Benedetti's vibrato that didn't work for me. To much on/off - landing on the note and then starting the vibrato, often an issue with an arm vibrato rather than hand/finger vibrato.

Mike

[Bert Coules]

I caught some of the second half and thought that the TV direction was better and more sensitive this year than for some time. In particular we seemed to be spared lengthy shots of the Prommers during the Sea Songs: concentrating our attention on the various soloists worked well and went some way towards making the piece a serious work rather than just an accompaniment to the usual mock-emotional shenanigans.

I do wish something could be done about the audience-participation noises during the Hornpipe. They're intrusive and horrible (and only a comparatively recent phenomenon, as evidenced by my two LPs of earlier last nights, where the audience is every bit as enthusiastic and uninhibited but much more disciplined and musical).

Bert

[kernelbogey]

I do wish something could be done about the audience-participation noises during the Hornpipe though. Unmusical and uneccessary.
Bert

Not including it would be the best way. It reminds me a little of both Private Eye and 'I'm sorry I haven't a Clue' - both have a stock of ancient jokes and catch phrases that are retained for the apparent relish of long-term aficionados. Which is why I described LNotP in an earlier post as cultish - as both those are.

I don't know how many countries take either the radio or tv broadcasts of LNotP - but I believe it has a huge international audience. I feel sad and embarrassed that they should witness the adolescent antics of the front-row prommers and the roaring chauvinism of Rule Brittania. Given our actual international potency - and this is not a bid to steer the thread off-topic! - I suspect this looks Ruritanian to the outside world.

I wish the BBC suits hadn't been so timid about Mark Elder's intention of taking the jingoism out of the last night.

[MrGongGong]

I do wish something could be done about the audience-participation noises during the Hornpipe. They're intrusive and horrible (and only a comparatively recent phenomenon, as evidenced by my two LPs of earlier last nights, where the audience is every bit as enthusiastic and uninhibited but much more disciplined and musical).

o for the days when you needed to flash your grade V theory certificate to be allowed into concerts

[kernelbogey]

o for the days when you needed to flash your grade V theory certificate to be allowed into concerts

Well they wouldn't have let me in then.

[VodkaDilc]

o for the days when you needed to flash your grade V theory certificate to be allowed into concerts

Even that's been dumbed down!

[DracoM]

Crikey! That whole evening was so utterly yuk-making. Like every public school leavers' ball you can imagine but multiplied by 10.

[EdgeleyRob]

The whole thing makes me cringe.
Each to their own,if people enjoy it that's fine,not for me though.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Like every public school leavers' ball you can imagine but multiplied by 10.

Sometimes round here I wonder if boarders and I have been watching the same thing. But then of course I've never experienced such a ball so I guess I must bow to superior knowledge

I thought I was watching a very mixed, fairly international audience enjoying themselves, and even sending themselves up, in a somewhat OTT fashion. Don't think many of them will be setting out to refound the British Empire today, or even be under any illusion that Britannia really ought still to be ruling the waves.

Lighten up guys???

[kernelbogey]

Lighten up guys???

I'm going to lighten up in the Garden, as I stated I was going to about two hours ago. I may even hum a chorus or two of 'Drake was in his cabin, an' a thousan' miles away'.... etc.

[salymap]

Sometimes round here I wonder if boarders and I have been watching the same thing. But then of course I've never experienced such a ball so I guess I must bow to superior knowledge

I thought I was watching a very mixed, fairly international audience enjoying themselves, and even sending themselves up, in a somewhat OTT fashion. Don't think many of them will be setting out to refound the British Empire today, or even be under any illusion that Britannia really ought still to be ruling the waves.

Lighten up guys???

Yes exactly, but even so didn't enjoy it much We did it better 50/60 years ago

[Alf-Prufrock]

What a set of grumpies many of you are. Some of you, it appears, will allow us who enjoy the last night to do so, but I resent your gracious condescension. And I feel sure that you are making strenuous attempts to spoil our enjoyment. Can you not keep quiet?

[Ariosto]

Unfortunately it was Nicola Benedetti's vibrato that didn't work for me. To much on/off - landing on the note and then starting the vibrato, often an issue with an arm vibrato rather than hand/finger vibrato.

Mike

I did not hear Ms B in the LNoftheP - but that sounds about right ...

[Ariosto]

I could enumerate at least half a dozen other concertos I would have rather she had played, including Glazunov just to mention one. To me the Bruch 1, Tchaik concertos both violin and piano concerto 1 et.al are the fodder for Classic FM where these works, or movements therefrom are flogged to death.

Well, up to a point although the Tchaik is still a great concerto, whatever you think, but yes, the Glazunov is a fine work too.

[Bert Coules]

I wouldn't want to drop what's become the traditional stuff. I always enjoy the Last Night rendition of Rule, Britannia!, including the fact that yes, there's a healthy dose of genial self-parody there to temper (but not, I think, entirely negate) the genuine emotions of the piece. What's wrong, after all, with the proud statement that "Britons never never will be slaves"? And I think the Sea Songs is a fine listen, incorporating some truly memorable melodies. I don't care as much for Jerusalem, possibly because I really don't understand just what building the titular foreign city in England's green and pleasant land is actually meant to entail or what good it would do even if we could achieve it, but it's a stirring sing and a rousing tune and some of the text is quite splendid too (though there again, puzzlement abounds: just what are arrows of desire and what does one do with them?). I could do without the National Anthem, especially in the gutless Britten arrangement, but I'm fond of the final, unprogrammed chorus of Old Lang Syne, though I wish they'd get the words right.

I still like the Last Night but I used to like it more. The enjoyment level, the good spirits and the end-of-term party atmosphere were no less evident in the past, before things started to get just a little too frayed round the edges. I don't think it's in the least joyless or superior or condescending or ungracious to ask some members of the audience to leave their unrhythmically-employed and sonically ill-balanced noise-making equipment at home.

Bert