Review: BBC PROMS: PROM 73, LAST NIGHT OF THE PROMS 2024, Royal Albert Hall

It has been a brilliant summer of concert for the BBC Proms. Even if not every piece landed perfectly or was to your taste, there is no doubt that the Proms provides entertainment, education and interest in its founding quest to showcase the best classical music for the widest possible audience. In a slightly disappointing end to the festival, short pieces and long pauses failed to live up to much of the wonder of the previous eight weeks.

The night also marked the end of David Pickard's last year as Director of the Proms. Not always popular, he deserves huge credit for taking the concerts around the country to a new audience (17 of the 73 concerts of this year’s programme took place outside London), as well as booking stars such as Sam Smith and Florence + The Machine to broaden the appeal beyond simply classical fans.

Last Night of the Proms was concert seemingly catered for the broadcast audience, where short pieces and long pauses interrupted the flow of the finale to the world's greatest classical music festival, presumably to allow for radio and TV interviews and chatter. At nearly three and a half hours, the evening felt stilted and a little flabby.

There were some stand-out moments. Soprano Angel Blue deserves wider recognition and her performance will ensure a new audience takes note of her talent. Two velvety opera arias, followed by an playful and perfectly executed zarzuela, where she proceeded to flirtaciously throw roses to the grateful audience, were almost flawless. Her rendition of the sometimes controversial "Rule, Britannia!" was slightly less confident, but rousing nonetheless.

There were some well selected Proms premieres – a bittersweet part song by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was beautifully delivered by the BBC Singers, and Grace Williams’ gorgeous "Fantasia on Welsh Nursery Tunes" is a composition well worth a repeated listen.

It was a real pity that our greatest pianist wasn't given the time to play a full concerto, with his eloquent and almost magical rendition of the second movement of Saint-Saëns’ ‘Egyptian’ Concerto giving us a tempting hint of what we were missing. A playful take on Mary Poppins' "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" was a highlight of part one.

In this year of Henry Mancini’s centenary The Pink Panther Theme was great fun, as well as this year's rather tenuous connection to sport. Charles Ives’s 1898 cacophony the "Yale-Princeton Football Game" was usurped by Iain Farrington’s newly commissioned "Extra Time", which was an ingenious mix of various theme tunes from TV sports programmes.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra was electric under its principal conductor, the ever-vibrant Sakari Oramo, while the LED wristbands given to the audience created another a giant Mexican wave: surely another Proms' first?

An over-long and stilted night of fun and festivities after a genuinely eclectic and exciting festival. Roll on next July!

The BBC Proms returns to the Royal Albert Hall on 18 July 2025

Photo Credits: BBC / Mark Allan or BBC / Chris Christodoulou

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