Marin Alsop www.marinalsop.com
and the BBC Symphony Orchestra www.bbc.co.uk/orchestras/symphonyorchestra
opened the evening with a BBC commission by Anna Clyne www.annaclyne.com, Masquerade, that opened with a swirling
of strings that led to dance like passages with ever changing variations and
full of brass and percussion at the end.
Wagner’s overture Die
Meistersingers von Nürnberg followed, receiving a weighty performance with terrific
breadth and sweep.
Marin Alsop, who was a student of Leonard Bernstein, brought
great vitality to the opening of his Chichester
Psalms, with some gutsy orchestral playing in the opening section. Iestyn Davies
www.iestyndavies.com was magnificent
in Psalm 23 as were the BBC Chorus in Psalm 2. Searing strings opened Part 3 before
some moments of exquisite tender and sensitive playing. There was a fine choral
Psalm 131 and a beautifully hushed Psalm 133 to end. A terrific performance.
Nigel Kennedy www.nigel-kennedy.net joined Marin Alsop and the orchestra to give
a truly rhapsodic performance of Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending. What a gorgeous tone Kennedy showed, full of
character and together with Alsop and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he brought
out so much from this lovely piece with such freedom of expression.
Britten’s The Building
of the House Op. 79 brought another psalm setting in this work of which the
opening contains somewhat diffuse chromatic writing that only opens up when the
chorus enters. This was nevertheless a fine performance with a terrific choral
ending.
Surely mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato’s www.joycedidonato.com voice has it all;
power, accuracy, control, richness, agility and purity which she showed to the
full in Massenet’s Je suis gris! Je suis
ivre! from Chérubin, Handel’s Frondi tenere
e belle from Xerxes and Rossini’s Tanti
affetti in tal momento! from la Donna del Largo, all superbly sung.
The second half of this final Prom of the season featured the
overture to Bernstein’s Candide in a lively
performance which brought out much of the symphonic nature of this overture followed
by Make our Garden Grow, also from Candide
with the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra giving a lovely performance, showing
what a melodic gift Bernstein had.
The BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra followed this with a
fine performance of Verdi’s Va, pensiero
(Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco.
Joyce DiDonato again joined the orchestra for some lighter fare
in the form of Harold Arlen’s Over the
Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz.
Nigel Kennedy then reappeared, to have great fun in a spectacular
version of Monti’s well-known Csardas,
including a lively duet with the leader of the orchestra, Stephen Bryant. Marin
Alsop and the orchestra kept up with Kennedy’s improvisations magnificently.
Joyce DiDonato returned to sing an attractive arrangement by
Chris Hazell of The Londonderry Air and
Richard Rodgers’ You’ll Never Walk Alone
from Carousel with ample support from the Prommers.
The night was brought towards a nautical theme in a finely
judged performance of Bantock’s The Sea Reivers,
his 1920 piece based on a Hebridean Sea-Reivers song.
Another composer, who had a neat melodic gift, was George Lloyd
whose HMS Trinidad March received the first performance of the version for orchestra.
This was a terrific ship’s march written for the ill-fated HMS Trinidad, making
an ideal piece for the last night of the Proms, leading as it did to Arne’s Rule Britannia with Joyce DiDonato,
resplendent in a pastel Union Jack gown.
Marin Alsop proved to be a natural conductor for the Last Night
of the Proms and fully at home in traditional last night fare of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, Parry’s
Jerusalem and Britten’s effective
arrangement of the National Anthem as well as giving a fine speech which was
received with great enthusiasm by the Prommers.
This was a memorable Last Night to conclude one of the finest
seasons for a long time as well as breaking records with fifty seven sold out
performances.
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