Last night of the Proms - music review, Royal Albert Hall
The Last Night of the Proms, a showcase of classical British music, ends on a high. Who ever thought the concert was old-fashioned?
13 September 2009
Rating: 5/5
When Sir David Attenborough comes on stage brandishing a vintage floor polisher, backed by Goldie and Rory Bremner shooting rifles, it's hard to take too seriously the argument that the Last Night of the Proms is caught in a musty time trap.
The celebs were there to provide a helping hand to a bizarrely comic number called "A Grand, Grand Overture". And this legendary event, running since 1895, contained a fair few other surprises. American conductor David Robertson swung cheerfully from a scintillating cover of George Gershwin's Can't Take That Away From Me to some tremendously menacing classical-Brazilian fusion and everywhere in between.
The traditional closing anthems of Jerusalem, Rule Britannia and Land of Hope and Glory ripped the roof off with a frenzy of flag waving, kazoo blowing and beach ball bouncing from the crowd. There didn't seem to be soul in the place who needed to rely on the lyric sheet. Proof, if any were needed, that the "elitist" Proms have always been home to the nation's most popular music.
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