The BBC has cancelled the last two Proms, out of respect for the Queen’s passing. Last night, barely an hour after her death was announced, the Philadelphia Orchestra took the stage of Royal Albert Hall to play “God Save the Queen” and “Nimrod” from Elgar’s “Enigma Variations.”
Traditionally, the Last Night of the Proms is a raucous affair, marked by audience participation and lots of flag-waving, “popular” in the truest sense. Many people attend the event that ordinarily would never set foot in a concert hall. Certainly, you’re not going to please everyone, but might not the scheduled programs have been altered to include selections of a more suitable mood?
The music of Ralph Vaughan Williams has been very well-represented on this year’s Proms, as well it should be, in his sesquicentennial year. Interestingly, it turns out that the Queen was an admirer of Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5. This serene work by a 71 year-old composer bears a message of consolation and hope and has been offering solace to audiences since its premiere in June 1943 – the height of World War II – introduced on a Prom concert at Albert Hall, no less. An air-raid warning sounded before the concert, but was ignored.
Might not this favorite of the Queen, a symphony of such national significance and great humanity, have been substituted, rather than simply turning out the lights and leaving everyone to pass the evenings at home with their phones and tellies?
Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 5
“O Taste and See,” composed for the Queen’s coronation in 1953