Prom 75 - 7.09.13: Last Night of the Proms

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

7.30pm – c. 10.40pm
Royal Albert Hall

Anna Clyne
Masquerade (c5 mins)
BBC Commission, World Premiere
Wagner
The Mastersingers of Nuremberg – overture (10 mins)
Bernstein
Chichester Psalms (19 mins)
Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending (12 mins)
The Building of the House (5 mins)
Bernstein
Candide – 'Make our Garden Grow' (5 mins)
Massenet
Chérubin – 'Je suis gris! je suis ivre!' (2 mins)
Handel
Xerxes – 'Frondi tenere e belle ... Ombra mai fù' (4 mins)
Rossini
La donna del lago – 'Tanti affetti in tal momento!' (4 mins)
INTERVAL
Bernstein
Candide – overture (5 mins)
Verdi
Nabucco – 'Va, pensiero' (Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) (4 mins)
Arlen
Over the Rainbow (5 mins)
Monti
Csárdás (6 mins)
Traditional
Londonderry Air (Danny Boy) (4 mins)
Rodgers
Carousel – 'You'll never walk alone' (6 mins)
Bantock
Sea Reivers (4 mins)
Lloyd
HMS Trinidad March (4 mins)
UK Premiere
Arne
Rule, Britannia! (7 mins)
Elgar
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D major ('Land of Hope and Glory') (6 mins)
Parry
orch. Elgar, Jerusalem (4 mins)
Traditional
The National Anthem (arr. Britten) (2 mins)

Joyce DiDonato mezzo-soprano
Nigel Kennedy violin
BBC Symphony Chorus
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Marin Alsop conductor

The Last Night begins with a celebratory new work by Anna Clyne and includes a rare performance of Britten's 1967 overture for chorus and orchestra, The Building of The House, a touch of Broadway magic and the sound of a glass ceiling being broken as Marin Alsop takes charge of her first Last Night. Nigel Kennedy and Joyce DiDonato are the star soloists in a programme that picks up sea-faring themes from Bantock and George Lloyd and includes a transatlantic flavour.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

7 minutes for "Rule Britannia".

[french frank]

7 minutes for "Rule Britannia".

Plus encores?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Silly me. I forgot.

[Alison]

My, it looks so boring !

[BBMmk2]

I have my own programme set up for this!

[EdgeleyRob]

4 minutes of George Lloyd though ,thankful for small mercies.

[VodkaDilc]

My, it looks so boring !

Isn't it only a few years ago that the first half always had some substantial works? Apart from Die Meistersinger and Chichester Psalms, it looks like something from Classic FM or Alan Keith's Sunday night programme. I'll try to catch those two pieces and then aim to get back to hear the Britten Nat Anth - the one version I enjoy.

[Alison]

4 minutes of George Lloyd though ,thankful for small mercies.

Soz, I hadn't noticed that ! Bet it's a brilliant tune !

[Alison]

Isn't it only a few years ago that the first half always had some substantial works? Apart from Die Meistersinger and Chichester Psalms, it looks like something from Classic FM or Alan Keith's Sunday night programme. I'll try to catch those two pieces and then aim to get back to hear the Britten Nat Anth - the one version I enjoy.

Are Danny Boy and You'll Never walk Alone every year regulars now ?

[Mary Chambers]

Vaughan Williams didn't compose The Building of the House. It's Britten, an occasional piece written for the opening of The Maltings at Snape. It contains the line "This house shall stand through storm and stress" (something like that, anyway). It didn't mention fire. When The Maltings was rebuilt after the disastrous fire of 1969, they did not repeat the piece at the opening concert.

[Barbirollians]

The instrumental soloist is usually expected to play a concerto . Nigel Kennedy is getting away with just The Lark Ascending of all pieces .

He used to be a noted exponent of the Britten Concerto and I saw him play it for the first time in concert in Sheffield or that is what he told a violinist friend and me after the event when he signed our programmes . That would have surely been an appropriate piece this year for the last night and it should not have scared too many horses.

[salymap]

Looks a mish-mash to me.

I shall look out some old CDs of ancient Last Nights. This is all gravy,no meat to me.

[Nick Armstrong]

Looks a mish-mash to me.

I shall look out some old CDs of ancient Last Nights. This is all gravy,no meat to me.

Just looked at the last night programme for the first time - really boring. The combination of pieces and soloists is a total turn-off as far as I'm concerned. It's usually on somewhere in the house, I don't think it will be this year.

[DracoM]

Ditto here.

Roger Wright doesn't know what the heck to do with the Last Night, never has, and it's gradually slipping into something indistinguishable from Proms in the Park intro by Wogan on R2. Which will be jollier to be honest. Mish-mash is spot on.